Sunday 1 November 2026
Drones hit one of Russia's largest oil refineries at Kstovo overnight, and the region's governor says more than 100 drones came in
More than 100 drones were destroyed over Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region overnight, and an industrial enterprise in the Kstovo district sustained significant damage with no casualties in the preliminary count, Governor Gleb Nikitin said on Sunday. Ukrainian monitoring channels and the Kyiv Independent identified the target as the NORSI refinery, owned by Lukoil, one of Russia's largest, and the Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said Ukraine's Defense Forces struck it with FP-1 long range drones. Russia launched 168 strike drones at Ukraine over October 31, Ukraine's Air Force said, of which 122 were neutralised.
The governor did not name the plant. A massive UAV attack took place overnight and this morning, Gleb Nikitin wrote on Telegram. More than one hundred drones were destroyed. An industrial facility in the Kstovo district sustained significant damage, and according to preliminary information there are no casualties.
The identification of the target comes from the Ukrainian side. Monitoring channels published footage of a fire at the Lukoil Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery, known as NORSI, in Kstovo, about 800 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, and Fire Point, the Ukrainian company that makes the FP-1 long range drone, posted on Sunday morning that the Defense Forces had struck the refinery with its weapons. The reports of the fire and its location could not be independently verified in the first hours, and Ukraine's military had not issued a detailed official statement at the time of the first reports.
NORSI is not a minor target. It is Russia's fourth largest oil refinery and its second largest gasoline producer, processing about 15 to 17 million tonnes of crude a year, including diesel and aviation fuel used by the Russian military. Ukraine has hit it repeatedly this year, in May, in July, and on August 26, when a confirmed strike caused a large fire and the plant suspended operations. It is the third Russian refinery reported hit in recent days, after Ufa and the Samara region.
The exchange ran in both directions the same night. Ukraine's Air Force said Russia launched 168 strike drones over October 31 and that 122 were neutralised, with explosions reported in Vinnytsia into the night of November 1 and a parking lot fire near a market in Kyiv's Desnianskyi district. Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent that Kyiv never agreed to pause its refinery strikes. The campaign against Russian refining is now a standing part of the war, measured refinery by refinery, and Sunday's fire at Kstovo is the latest entry on a list both sides keep.
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