Oil Refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban Ablaze After Drone Alert

A fire broke out at the oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban after a drone threat was announced.

The Astra outlet reported the incident.

The Slavyansk oil refinery was attacked overnight on September 13, 2026.

By dawn, local residents had begun posting footage showing thick smoke over the area around the refinery and nearby neighborhoods.

NASA’s FIRMS monitoring service also confirmed the fire at the facility. According to its data, the service detected strong thermal radiation near the refinery around 1:00 a.m. local time.

Slavyansk ECO operates the oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, located within the city about 69 km northwest of Krasnodar.

As of the mid-2020s, the refinery’s nominal processing capacity was estimated at 5.2 million tonnes of crude oil per year. However, actual processing volumes between 2019 and 2023 ranged from 3.3 to 4.1 million tonnes per year.

The oil refinery is one of Russia’s largest independent oil refineries. It does not have its own oil production and therefore relies on crude oil purchased from other suppliers or provided by third parties for processing.

The refinery has been targeted by Ukrainian drones several times. The most recent attack occurred on December 17, 2025.

Attacks on oil refineries in southern Russia are causing significant fuel shortages in the region. This is due both to disruptions to seaborne oil supplies, which have become increasingly risky amid Ukraine’s Molochka operation, and to extensive damage to fuel infrastructure.

Militarnyi previously reported that Ukraine launched a record number of strikes on Russian oil refineries in August, with at least 21 attacks recorded during the month.

In August, four of Russia’s ten largest oil refineries were targeted. These facilities supply fuel to some of the country’s most densely populated and industrially developed regions.

Due to reduced refining volumes, gasoline production and supplies to Russia’s domestic market fell by nearly 20% during the first three weeks of August compared with the same period last year.