A refinery feeding occupied Crimea is burning after an overnight Ukrainian strike

Overnight on 28 June, Ukraine struck two Russian oil refineries hundreds of kilometers apart, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. A large fire broke out at the Slavyansk plant in Krasnodar Krai, a key fuel supplier for occupied Crimea, while a second strike reached a top-five refinery near Yaroslavl, far to the north.

A “very fat target” near Crimea

The Slavyansk Oil Refinery, run by Slavyansk-EKO, sits at Slavyansk-na-Kubani, about 300 kilometers from the front. Ukraine struck it overnight, and a large fire broke out, the monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported. Locals said the storage tanks were burning, Supernova+ noted. Russia’s Astra channel placed the blaze on the refinery grounds, geolocating footage shot from Shkolna Street about 1.8 kilometers away.

The refinery is one of Russia’s largest independent plants, with a capacity of about 5.2 million tons of crude a year, though 2023 throughput was closer to 4.19 million. It accounts for roughly 9% of refining in Russia’s Southern Federal District and holds about 74 storage tanks of varying size. Ukraine has hit it this year, most recently on 2 June, and earlier in January.

NASA’s FIRMS satellite system flagged the Slavyansk fire early today local time and detected a separate possible blaze at the “Slavyanskaya” oil-stabilization and gas-treatment unit nearby, Exilenova+ reported.

A second strike near Yaroslavl

Far to the north, Ukraine reached a refinery in Yaroslavl Oblast, about 700 kilometers from the border, Zelenskyy confirmed. Monitoring channels identified it as Slavneft-YANOS, one of Russia’s five largest plants, with a capacity of about 15 million tons a year, the Moscow Times reported. The plant was last struck on 22 May.

Yaroslavl’s governor reported a drone threat overnight, and then a temporary closure of routes toward Moscow, and Russia’s aviation regulator briefly shut the local Tunoshna airport. Officials gave no account of any damage at the plant; monitors shared only a photo of a distant smoke column above the city.

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“Long-range sanctions”

Zelenskyy tied both strikes to Ukraine’s wider campaign. 

“Our long-range sanctions reached two oil refineries in Russia,” he wrote, marking Constitution Day. 

Each deep strike, he said, cuts the resources feeding Russia’s war machine and brings another step toward peace.