MOSCOW - Ukraine struck Russian oil refineries in a second day of heavy drone attacks on March 13, causing a fire at Rosneft’s biggest refinery in what President Vladimir Putin said was an attempt to disrupt his country’s presidential election this week.

Russia and Ukraine have both used drones to strike critical infrastructure, military installations and troop concentrations in their more than two-year war, with Kyiv stepping up attacks on Russian refineries and energy facilities in recent months.

A day after seriously damaging Lukoil’s Norsi refinery in Nizhny Novgorod, Ukrainian drone attacks hit refineries in the Rostov and Ryazan regions, Russian officials said.

In Ryazan, 180km from Moscow, a drone attack caused a fire at Rosneft’s refinery, Russia’s seventh-largest, and there were initial reports of injuries, governor Pavel Malkov said.

In a later update, he said the fire had been extinguished.

Two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters that the refinery had been forced to shut down two primary oil refining units.

Rosneft did not reply to a request for comment.

In Rostov, there were no casualties but the Novoshakhtinsk refinery was forced to halt operations and damage was being assessed, regional governor Vasily Golubev said.

A Ukrainian source told Reuters the drone attacks were conducted by Ukraine’s SBU security service. “We are systematically implementing a detailed, calculated strategy to reduce Russia’s economic potential,” the source said.

Ukrainian defence forces, the source added, also conducted overnight drone attacks on a Russian airbase in Buturlinovka and a military airfield in Voronezh region.

Strikes on oil refineries – a key source of Russia’s income – have the potential to reduce the country’s output of petrol and diesel and push up prices.

Russia imposed a six-month ban on petrol exports on March 1.

President Putin, in remarks published on March 13, accused Kyiv of attempts to interfere with the March 15 to 17 presidential election through its attacks.

“The main goal, I have no doubt about it, is to – if not to disrupt the presidential elections in Russia – then at least somehow interfere with the normal process of expressing the will of citizens,” the Russian leader told Russia’s RIA state news agency and Rossiya-1 state television in a wide-ranging interview.

President Putin, who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, is nearly certain to win the vote.

Drone war

“I think everyone can see our drones in action. Particularly in long-range action,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, in his nightly address on March 12.

Russian media said around 60 drones had been destroyed over Russian sovereign territory over just several hours on March 13.

Russia’s RIA state news agency said four Ukrainian drones attacked the Ryazan plant in the early hours, leading to a 175 sq m blaze.

Unverified video footage posted on social media showed a plume of black smoke soaring above flames at the plant, which refines about 12.7 million tonnes of oil a year, or 4.6 per cent of the Russian total, according to industry sources.

It accounts for about 6.4 per cent of Russia’s petrol production, 4.1 per cent of diesel, 7.7 per cent of fuel oil and 8 per cent of aviation fuel, according to the sources.

Full Russian production figures are no longer published.

A drone was destroyed by air defences on its approach to the Kirishi refinery, Russia’s second-largest, in the north of Russia, Leningrad’s regional governor Alexander Drozdenko said.

There was no impact on the refinery’s work, he said. REUTERS