A drone attack on the night of 8-9 November sparked a fire at the Kirishinefteorgsintez oil refinery in the Russian city of Kirishi, Leningrad Oblast. The facility, which is under international sanctions, ranks as Russia’s second-largest oil refinery by processing capacity.
Reports of the attack came from Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channels Exilenova+, Dnipro Osin and Supernova+, as well as the Russian media outlet Astra. An open-source intelligence analyst working for Astra examined footage recorded in Kirishi and confirmed that a fire was burning at the local refinery.
Leningrad Oblast Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said 113 drones had been shot down over the region during the night. That figure covered the oblast as a whole. The reports about the refinery described a fire following the overnight drone attack on the industrial facility.
Preliminary accounts indicated that a blaze had broken out at ELOU-AVT-2, one of the refinery’s primary oil refining units. Two other units, ELOU-AVT-6 and ELOU-AT-6, were also reported to have been hit. Those details about the affected processing equipment remained based on early reports of the attack.
Located near St Petersburg, the refinery belongs to the Surgutneftegas group and has an important role in providing petroleum products to northwestern Russia. Astra described it as a key source of fuel for St Petersburg and of aviation kerosene for Pulkovo Airport, linking the plant to supplies for both the city and its airport.
The plant’s design capacity is approximately 20 to 21 million tonnes of crude oil annually. Its range of products includes petrol, diesel fuel and aviation kerosene, along with fuel oil, bitumen, liquefied gas and petrochemical products. That processing capacity places it second among Russia’s oil refineries.
The United States imposed sanctions on Surgutneftegas and its affiliated entities in 2025, including the Kirishi refinery. The European Union and the United Kingdom have also sanctioned the company. The facility was therefore already subject to international restrictions before the latest reported attack.
The refinery has faced drone attacks several times previously. An attack in March led to a complete suspension of operations at the plant. Before the November incident, Ukraine’s defence forces had most recently attacked the facility in August.
