Ukraine Flexes With Much Deeper Drone Reach Targeting Russia’s Refineries 

Ukraine has been demonstrating deeper targeting reach inside Russia, as several key oil sites have come under direct drone attack this week, resulting in significant destruction.

This as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday announced “a new stage in the use of Ukrainian weapons to limit the potential of Russia’s war.“

The massive Tuapse complex on Russia’s Black Sea coast has been hit no less than three times in under a month, sparking a series of massive fires that in some cases took days for emergency crews to extinguish.

In some cases, targets in the Urals – nearly 1,000 miles away from the Ukraine border – have been hit.

Transneft’s oil pumping and distribution facility in the city of Perm was struck this week, which lies very far into Russian territory.

The Ukraine Security Service (SBU) owned up to it, boasting that the targeted facility is “a strategically important hub of the main oil transportation system.” It further declared that ”almost all oil storage tanks are on fire.“

Amid the fresh Perm attack, Russia had said it downed nearly 100 Ukrainian drones across various regions, while Russia’s presidential envoy to the region, Artem Zhoga, conceded that “The Urals are now within reach, be vigilant.”

Putin’s office has also denounced these fresh assaults on oil facilities as “terrorist attacks”. As for the prior Black Sea export and refining hub attacks of the last month, CNN reviews:

For the third time in 12 days, the Russian Black Sea town of Tuapse woke up Tuesday to apocalyptic scenes.

Thick toxic fumes, and flames rising up from the latest Ukrainian drone attack on the Rosneft-owned Tuapse oil refinery, almost reached the heights of the surrounding Caucasus mountains.

By Thursday morning, authorities said the fire had been extinguished. Fires from the two previous attacks, on April 16 and 20, also took days to put out, with toxic substances pouring down in black rain and blanketing cars and streets in oily grime, leading to what experts are dubbing the worst environmental disaster in the region in years.

Huge fireball at Perm oil site…

Ukrainian drone attacks have struck Perm (about 1,500 km from Ukraine), targeting oil infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/lCXo8Pb1tb

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 30, 2026

Currently, the globe’s attention is largely focused on the Iran war and the Hormuz Strait blockade, and with that efforts to reach a political and peace settlement in Ukraine have faded as well. Earlier in the Ukraine war, these major refinery attacks would dominate world headlines, but at the moment they have remained in the background given the constant Iran-related news flow. President Putin has lately communicated to Trump that he’s open to a ‘Victory Day’ ceasefire, a proposal the Kremlin said Washington has backed.