Drones ignite fires at Russian nuclear and oil sites
On the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, during a massive drone attack on Russia, drones targeted a "nuclear energy facility" in Smolensk and a refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region. A huge fire broke out.
The drone attack was reported by the region's governor, Vasily Anokhin. According to his information, the drone was shot down, and "there are no casualties or damages."
According to Shot, the remains of the downed drone fell near the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which is located in the southern part of the region, near the city of Desnogorsk. The plant is the largest energy enterprise in the region, providing about 90% of the region's electricity production.
The refinery in Kstovo is on fire
In the Nizhny Novgorod region, which was also attacked by drones, the remains of the downed drone fell on the site of "one of the plants in the Kstovo industrial zone," causing a fire, according to the region's governor, Gleb Nikitin.
"Firefighters are currently extinguishing the fire; according to preliminary data, there are no casualties," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to the Shot channel, the drones targeted a local refinery owned by Lukoil, one of Russia's largest oil processing plants. This is another attack on this facility. Previously, a firefighting train was engaged to extinguish a fire, and the damages were so severe that the refinery was shut down for two months.
The second-largest attack this year
According to information from the Russian Ministry of Defense, on the previous night, air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 104 drones over nine regions of Russia.
Forty-seven drones were shot down over the Kursk region, 27 over Bryansk, 11 over Smolensk, seven over Tver, and four over Belgorod. Three were over Nizhny Novgorod, and another three drones were shot down over the Kaluga region, with one each over Rostov and Leningrad.
This was the second-largest drone attack on Russia since the beginning of the year. On January 24, Russian regions were attacked by 121 Ukrainian drones, and on January 11, by 85. The most significant attack took place on September 1 of the previous year, when 158 drones attacked Russia.
