What happened

Ukrainian drones struck Rosneft's Kuibyshev oil refinery in Samara overnight into 22 September 2026, part of a wider wave that also hit the Bashneft-UNPZ refinery in Bashkortostan. Eyewitness video showed a large fireball and rising smoke over the plant. Later Reuters reporting, citing industry sources, said both primary crude-processing units, AVT-4 and AVT-5, were damaged and that the refinery halted oil processing and fuel production. Its 2024 throughput of approximately 94,400 barrels per day provides the best available estimate of processing taken offline. Samara region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said one person was killed and four wounded in the wider region during the attack, without locating those casualties at the refinery. No refinery-specific casualty figure or restart timetable was published. This is a distinct repeat strike on the same facility as the documented 23 March 2024 attack and earlier 2026 incidents.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.