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Ukrainian drones strike Russia’s Syzran oil refinery, Kyiv says

By Thomson Reuters May 21, 2026 | 4:05 AM

May 21 (Reuters) – Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Rosneft-owned Syzran oil refinery in Samara region overnight, ​Ukrainian military and President Volodymyr ‌Zelenskiy said on Thursday.

“Another Ukrainian long-range sanction against Russian oil refining – and we are continuing this line of ‌action,” ​Zelenskiy said on ⁠the Telegram messaging app.

“This ⁠time around, it was the Syzran oil refinery – more than 800 kilometers away from our border.”

Zelenskiy ​posted footage of a fire and smoke billowing into ⁠the sky.

Two people ⁠were killed in a drone ​attack on the town of Syzran ​in Samara region, the local ‌governor said, without mentioning whether any infrastructure was damaged in the attack.

Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces said ⁠the attack caused a large fire at the refinery, whose annual processing capacity ⁠ranges from ‌7 to 8.9 million ⁠tons of crude oil.

The ​commander ‌of the Ukrainian drone ​forces, Robert ⁠Brovdi, said it was the 11th Russian oil refinery targeted by Ukraine during May.

(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Aidan Lewis and ​Tomasz Janowski)