Russia and Ukraine traded hundreds of drone strikes overnight, killing civilians on both sides and setting fire to a Russian refinery, a Ukrainian apartment block, and a petrol station near the Polish border.
Two civilians died in Nizhnekamsk, a city in Russia’s Tatarstan region, after a Ukrainian drone hit a tree near their parked car, according to the office of regional head Rustam Minnikhanov. Twelve others were injured. Nizhnekamsk is home to major oil refineries and petrochemical, rubber and polymer plants, including some of Russia’s largest facilities of their kind. Mayor Radmir Belyaev confirmed a fire broke out “at one of the city’s enterprises” but gave no further detail.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence agency said its drones also struck a major refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, in Russia’s Krasnodar region across from Crimea, hitting a key oil processing unit and the site’s tank farm and sparking a blaze visible for dozens of kilometers. Krasnodar authorities confirmed a strike on “an enterprise” in the town that injured three people and damaged an oil pipeline, though they did not directly address Ukraine’s claims about the refinery.
These strikes are part of a sustained Ukrainian campaign against Russia’s oil and gas sector, which Kyiv says bankrolls and fuels Moscow’s war effort. The campaign has already caused fuel rationing inside Russia, a major oil and gas exporter. Ukrainian forces have also gone after Russian online retailers in recent strikes.
Russia’s defense ministry said it shot down 389 Ukrainian drones overnight, including strikes over Tatarstan, other Russian regions, and occupied Crimea.
Odesa hit again
Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa took another beating overnight, with at least nine people injured in what Serhii Lysak, head of the city’s military administration, called a “massive” attack. Odesa has faced months of sustained drone and missile fire, which Kyiv says is aimed at strangling its export capacity.
A Russian drone attack on Saturday hit a residential high-rise in the city, killing two people and injuring 26. Regional head Oleh Kiper said the building’s upper floors were completely destroyed.
Strikes reach toward NATO territory
Russian strikes also hammered western Ukraine through the night, with no immediate reports of casualties there. One drone struck near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing with Poland, igniting a petrol station, according to Ukraine’s foreign minister and a local customs spokesperson.
“This is Putin’s terror ‘knocking’ directly on the doors of the EU and NATO. Russian barbarians are at your gate, dear partners,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
Ukraine’s border crossings with Poland carry much of the Western military and humanitarian aid flowing into the country. Valentyna Chernysh, a spokesperson for the Volyn Customs Office, told the Associated Press the Yahodyn crossing itself was not damaged and no one was hurt, since it had been closed during the air raid alert and people were sent to shelters.
Separately, Ukraine’s state rail operator said a Russian drone struck the locomotive of a passenger train in the Volyn region, just over a mile from the Polish border.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down or jammed 409 Russian drones overnight, including a newer jet-powered variant that is faster and harder to intercept. Russia launched 453 drones at Ukraine in total, the air force said.
The exchange comes as Russia leans more heavily on ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, whose stock of interceptors has been dwindling. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is deliberately targeting the power grid ahead of winter to demoralize the civilian population.
