Ukraine pressed its campaign against Russia's oil industry overnight, striking a major refinery and a key pipeline hub deep inside Russian territory, the Ukrainian General Staff confirmed. The two targets lay in different regions, hundreds of kilometers apart. Together, they hit two parts of one chain: where crude becomes fuel, and where it moves toward export. Another strike targeted an oil depot next to occupied Ukraine.
The refinery in Saratov
Overnight on 31 May, drones struck the Saratov oil refinery, a plant owned by Russia's state oil company Rosneft. The General Staff said units of Ukraine's Defense Forces hit the facility and reported a large-scale fire.
Russian Telegram channel Astra geolocated the blaze to the refinery's tank farm. Ukrainian channel Exilenova+ said a drone likely hit the isomerization unit. OSINT channel Falcon Insight mapped damage across several key processing units.
Saratov governor Roman Busargin claimed only "civilian infrastructure" was damaged and did not mention the refinery.
The plant has been hit before. After a March strike, it halted operations, part of a campaign that has repeatedly returned to the same site.
The pipeline hub in Kirov Oblast
The second target was the Lazarevo linear production and dispatch station (LPDS). An LPDS pumps and stores crude as it travels through a trunk pipeline.
Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SOF) said its drones hit the station, which lies almost 1,200 kilometers from Ukraine's border. Serhii Sternenko, an adviser to Ukraine's defense minister, also reported the strike.
What makes Lazarevo valuable is where its pipes lead. The station pushes Western Siberian crude toward the Baltic export port of Primorsk and on to Belarus. The General Staff said it feeds the Surgut-Gorky-Polotsk trunk line. Lazarevo also connects to the Druzhba system, letting Russia move oil between its two largest pipelines in European Russia.
That junction is the point. By hitting it, Ukraine targets Russia's ability to reroute crude around earlier strikes. A comparable Transneft pumping station near Perm burned in April. The station operates large storage tanks of 20,000 and 50,000 cubic meters. Kirov governor Aleksandr Sokolov claimed a drone hit an unnamed enterprise in the Urzhum district, with no casualties.
The wider night of strikes
Ukraine also struck an oil depot at Matveev Kurgan in Rostov Oblast, near the border. SOF called it the Agroprodukt depot, with large tanks and rail and road loading terminals. Exilenova+ reported the depot was hit. Rostov governor Yuri Slyusar claimed "falling debris" started the fire and said residents were evacuated.
Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it shot down 216 drones over nine Russian oblasts, Krasnodar Krai, occupied Crimea, and the Sea of Azov.
