Drones Strike Power Supply Hub of Druzhba Oil Pipeline in Tatarstan

On the night of February 23, attack drones struck the main oil pumping station Kaleikino near Almetyevsk, in Tatarstan. The facility serves as a key power supply hub for the Druzhba pipeline.

Astra reported on this.

After the strike, a major fire broke out at the station, visible to local residents. The facility is owned by the Russian pipeline operator Transneft.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities confirmed that the facility had been hit. Officials said that a fire broke out on the company’s premises as a result of falling drone debris.

“Air defense systems on duty neutralized a UAV in the sky over the Almetyevsky district. As a result of falling debris in the industrial zone, a localized fire started,” the local administration stated.

The Kaleikino oil pumping station is the main facility in the Almetyevsk area of the Republic of Tatarstan, located more than 1,000 km from Ukraine’s state border at coordinates 54.91923757291083, 52.2078132806624.

This key transport hub receives and blends oil flows of varying quality from Western Siberia, Tatarstan, Udmurtia, and Bashkortostan, and then feeds them into main pipeline branches. Under normal operations, the station receives and pumps approximately 350,000 tons per day (equivalent to about 4.2 million tons per year).

Routes supplying local refineries – including the Nizhnekamsk refinery – as well as transit and export lines pass through the facility. Taking the station out of operation forces operators to urgently redistribute resources, creating a risk of reduced capacity across the entire network.

The technical complex includes several substations, such as Kaleikino-1 and Kaleikino-2, and has its own tank farm, mainline pumping units, oil treatment systems, fire protection automation, and wastewater treatment facilities.

It is worth noting that the Kaleikino station indirectly supplies the Druzhba pipeline, as it forms and feeds part of the oil flows that later enter this system.

The station receives crude oil from fields in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, neighboring regions, and internal trunk pipelines. The hub then distributes these flows: part goes to Russian refineries in Nizhnekamsk and Samara, while another portion moves westward via the Samara–Unecha line toward the Druzhba pipeline.

It is important to understand a key nuance: although Kaleikino is not located directly on the Druzhba pipeline itself – unlike Unecha – it remains one of the network’s key supply hubs.

Militarnyi previously reported that drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine carried out another strike on the Tamannaftogaz oil terminal in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai.