How far do Ukrainian drones penetrate Russian territory?

On Monday, drones from Kyiv reached the Russian republic of Tatarstan, in the city of Nizhnekamsk, some 1,200 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and 880 kilometres east of Moscow. The attack struck the Taneco oil refinery, owned by Tatneft; 13 people were killed and 75 were injured. It is one of the deadliest single attacks against the Kremlin since the start of the full-scale war in 2022 and among the deepest incursions into Russian territory: in recent months, Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian refineries to disrupt fuel supplies to the army and civilian consumers, causing long queues at petrol stations and even striking refineries as far away as Siberia, 2,400 kilometres from the front line. According to some sources, the Russian petrochemical complex Sibur Zapsibneftekhim in Tobolsk, in the Tyumen region of Western Siberia, was also damaged in a drone attack on Monday. One of the sources told Reuters that the plant, Russia’s largest liquefied petroleum gas facility, has been shut down indefinitely “whilst the extent of the damage and its consequences are being assessed”.

Since June, Ukraine has been using drones to attack military, energy and logistics installations in Crimea, and the commander in charge of Ukraine’s drone warfare, Robert Brovdi, said in a recent interview with LaPresse that Kyiv’s attacks on Crimea represent “the first phase of a campaign aimed at rendering the peninsula – illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 – unusable as an operational base for Russian forces”. The attacks have also triggered one of the country’s worst fuel crises and have affected more than 20 warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer.