Drones Attack Nizhnekamsk Oil Refinery 1,200 km From Ukraine

Strike drones operated by the Ukrainian Defense Forces attacked the Nizhnekamsk oil refinery in the Republic of Tatarstan.

The Exilenova+ published a video of the attack.

The attack took place at 3:22 a.m. on September 13, 2026, after a drone threat was declared in the region.

During the attack, local residents recorded footage of three to four flare stacks operating at the refinery.

The primary purpose of a flare is to safely burn off excess or vented hydrocarbon gases that, for various reasons, cannot immediately be fed into the main production process or captured by the facility for further use.

The Nizhnekamsk oil refinery has been targeted before. The most recent drone attack on the facility took place on August 20, 2026. At the time, a strike was recorded on the refinery grounds.

The TANЕCO oil refining facility is considered the largest refinery built from the ground up in the post-Soviet space.

The first units began commercial operation in 2010–2011, and the facility was officially launched in December 2014.

The initial design capacity for primary oil refining was 7 million tonnes of crude oil per year.

Through the gradual expansion of its production lines, including two ELOU-AVT units – AVT-6 and AVT-7 – the oil refinery’s processing capacity increased to 16.2 million tonnes of crude oil in 2022. According to some later estimates, the facility processes 16–17 million tonnes of oil per year.

The refinery produces motor gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, base oils, marine fuel, and other petroleum products. The refinery’s oil-processing depth reaches 99%.

Militarnyi previously reported that on the morning of September 11, Ukrainian strike drones attacked the Azot branch of OJSC United Chemical Company Uralchem in Berezniki, Perm Krai, Russia. According to Exilenova+, the drones struck one of Russia’s largest chemical industry enterprises.