Ukraine strikes Volgograd oil refinery

Ukraine's latest refinery strike, on Lukoil's Volgograd plant, left four workers dead, and the campaign since late October has hit plants with over a third of Russia's refining capacity.

Correction: An earlier version gave the 55% as the effect of this attack alone. It is the total out of action, counting this attack.

Ukraine's Defence Forces struck the Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka oil refinery overnight on 13 November. Oil and gas analyst Vitaly Vakulenko said that, counting this attack, capacity covering about 55% of Russia's commercial gasoline is out of action.

Ukraine's General Staff called it one of the key 'fuel stations' of the Russian army in the south, making petrol, diesel and aviation fuel. Reuters had written several days earlier that about a third of Russian refining capacity was already down.

A fire spread across the refinery grounds, Ukrainian forces said. They reported the ATs-1, ATs-3, ATs-5 and ATs-6 primary oil refining units, a hydrotreating unit, a loading rack and six reservoirs of 2,000 cubic metres each were hit. Volgograd governor Andrei Bocharov said four employees of the city's southern industrial zone were killed and two more hospitalized.

Ukrainian forces resumed attacks on refineries in late October, hitting major plants in Yaroslavl, Kirishi, Ryazan and Omsk. Figures cited by Ukrainian arms maker Fire Point put the targeted facilities at a combined refining capacity of over 120 million tonnes of crude a year. That works out at about 36% of Russia's total refining capacity.

Spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said the Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal case under the anti-terrorist article of the Russian Criminal Code.