Ukrainian Drones Hit Deep Into Russia as Kyiv Targets Refineries and Arms Plants
Ukraine’s military says it struck defence plants in Russia’s Bryansk region, an oil depot at Belgorod airfield, bridges in occupied Crimea and supply depots in Donetsk, while drones reportedly reached as far as Siberia’s Novosibirsk and the Omsk oil refinery. The attacks deepen Kyiv’s strategy of bringing the war to Russia’s industrial rear and forcing the Kremlin to spend resources defending refineries, ammo plants and logistics far from the front.
Kyiv is pushing the war deeper into Russia’s industrial heartland, with Ukrainian forces claiming a fresh wave of strikes against arms factories, oil infrastructure and logistics nodes stretching from Bryansk and Belgorod to occupied Crimea and even Siberia.
Ukraine’s General Staff said overnight attacks hit two defence‑industry facilities in Russia’s Bryansk region: the "Grupa Kremniy EL" plant in Bryansk city, a major producer of microelectronics, and the "Bryansk" plant in Seltso, which manufactures gunpowder, explosives and related components. The statement reported four explosions at the Seltso site. Ukrainian forces also said they struck the oil depot at Belgorod airfield, two railway bridges in occupied Crimea, and Russian supply depots near Volnovakha and Yasynuvata in Donetsk region.
Separately, reports from inside Russia said Ukrainian drones had, for the first time, reached Novosibirsk region, nearly 4,000 kilometres from Ukraine. Regional authorities announced a threat of drone attacks and urged residents to stay indoors and away from windows. The same reporting linked the alert to an earlier strike on the Omsk Oil Refinery, one of Russia’s largest, which had already been targeted. Explosions were also reported overnight at the Krasnozavodsk Chemical Plant, the TsNIITochMash defence research centre in Klimovsk, and TsNIISM in Khotkovo in Moscow region, with Ukrainian drones "reportedly detected" over several areas.
Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for every reported incident, and Russian authorities have not confirmed damage at all the named sites. But Kyiv has been increasingly open about its strategy of hitting refineries, depots and defence plants deep inside Russia as part of a declared 40‑day operation. Ukraine’s security service has said its special forces carried out 13 long‑range strikes on Russian military targets over the past week, including airfields in occupied Crimea and multiple oil refineries inside Russia.
For Russian workers and communities near these facilities, the human cost is a creeping sense that places once seen as far from the front are now on a strike map. Alerts telling residents to stay away from windows in a Siberian city, or footage of fire near industrial plants in Moscow region, bring home a war the Kremlin has tried to present as distant. For Ukrainian civilians living under regular missile and drone barrages, the strikes are seen by many as overdue reciprocity and a way to erode Russia’s capacity to keep launching attacks.
Strategically, the focus on refineries and defence plants is designed to hit Russia where it hurts over time: its ability to turn oil into export revenue and fuel for its forces, and raw materials into munitions. Damaging microelectronics producers like Grupa Kremniy EL matters because Russia has struggled to source advanced chips under sanctions; hitting gunpowder and explosives plants complicates efforts to refill artillery and rocket stocks. Strikes on bridges in Crimea and depots in Donetsk are part of the same effort to stretch Russian logistics along a vulnerable land bridge and occupied territories.
The reported reach into Novosibirsk and repeated attacks on the Omsk refinery also have a signalling function. They show that Ukraine, using domestically produced long‑range drones, can threaten targets close to key nodes of Russia’s oil and defence complex—without direct involvement of Western‑supplied long‑range weapons. That carries escalation risks: Moscow could use deep strikes as justification for intensifying its own attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure or for threatening Western countries it accuses of enabling the attacks with intelligence and technology.
The reality emerging from these raids is that Russia’s rear is no longer a sanctuary; its refineries, chemical plants and research institutes are part of the battlefield. The next indicators to watch include Russian efforts to harden air defences around key industrial sites, any visible drop in output or export volumes from repeatedly struck refineries, and whether Ukraine can sustain this tempo of long‑range operations without depleting its own growing but still limited drone arsenal.
Sources
- OSINT