Ukraine says it hit Saratov refinery in attack on Russian energy

Bloomberg News on Mar 21, 2026

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Ukraine’s military said it attacked Rosneft PJSC’s Saratov oil refinery in southwestern Russia while regional authorities elsewhere said they repelled drones near crude processing facilities.

A processing unit and a vertical storage tank were damaged at the Saratov plant, which produces fuel for Russia’s military, the Ukrainian General Staff said Saturday on Telegram. The extent of the damage is being clarified, it said.

Ukraine’s claim couldn’t be independently verified and Rosneft didn’t immediately respond to a Bloomberg request for a comment sent via WhatsApp outside of normal business hours. Roman Busargin, governor of Saratov region, said earlier that civilian infrastructure had been damaged by drones and two people hurt.

Ukraine regularly attacks Russian energy infrastructure, targeting refineries, export pipelines and sea terminals in an effort to reduce the Kremlin’s oil revenues and its ability to fund the war. The General Staff said in November it launched a strike against the Saratov plant.

Authorities in Russia’s Bashkortostan region said Saturday that drones had been repelled overnight close to major oil refineries that previously came under attack several times last year.

The unmanned vehicles were downed near the plants in Ufa, Radiy Khabirov, the regional head, said on Telegram. Two craft fell on a building that was undergoing construction work and emergency services extinguished a resultant fire, he said. Kyiv hasn’t commented on the incident.

The refinery in Saratov, which lies more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the southeast of Moscow, has a design processing capacity of around 140,000 barrels per day. Rosneft’s Bashneft unit has three such facilities in Ufa with a combined capacity of about 470,000 barrels a day. The city is located about 1,750 km northeast of Kyiv, showing Ukraine’s ability to strike deep into Russian territory.

Ukraine said last year it attacked plants in the Bashkortostan region, which also hosts Gazprom PJSC’s Neftekhim Salavat petrochemical facility.

With the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine now in its fifth year, the Russian Defense Ministry said 283 drones had been shot down overnight across 15 regions, with 54 more intercepted during the day. Ukraine’s military said it had intercepted 148 of 154 drones overnight.

Two people were killed in an attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Ivan Fedorov said in a Telegram post. In Russia, Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said two people were killed by Ukrainian shelling.

U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators are set to hold talks on Saturday as Kyiv seeks to restart peace negotiations thrown off course in recent weeks by the conflict in Iran. The discussions will be held in Miami, Reuters reported.

Ukraine’s team will discuss a potential drone deal with the U.S., President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday, as Kyiv tries to leverage its experience with UAV warfare.