“This is money of his accomplices burning”: Russian partisans and Ukraine hit Siberian plant tied to Putin’s inner circle

Ukraine's drones reached deep into Siberia to hit one of Russia's biggest chemical plants. The Deep Strike units of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SOF), working with the Russian insurgent movement "Chornaya Iskra", struck the ZapSibNeftekhim complex in Tobolsk, Tyumen Oblast, the SOF reported on 10 August.

The strike reached a strategic plant more than 2,000 kilometers from Ukraine. ZapSibNeftekhim is Russia's largest petrochemical complex and a strategic chemical-industry enterprise.

The plant makes materials with military uses

The target feeds Russia's industry, including its war production. The Tobolsk complex produces basic raw materials for a wide range of industrial products, some of which have applications in the defense-industrial sector.

Its scale is substantial. The complex produces about 2.5 million tons of polymers a year, including dual-use materials, making it a flagship of Russia's chemical industry rather than a peripheral target, according to the insurgent movement Chornaya Iskra.

The plant belongs to Putin-linked billionaires

The strike hit assets tied to Russia's ruler, Vladimir Putin's inner circle. ZapSibNeftekhim is the flagship of the SIBUR holding, which is owned directly and indirectly by billionaires, including Gennady Timchenko and the Kovalchuks, figures who built their fortunes on their closeness to the leadership, Chornaya Iskra reports.

The partisans framed the strike in those terms.

"This is not just a money flow feeding Putin's economy burning, this is the money of his accomplices burning," Chornaya Iskra said, casting the strike as hitting the oligarchs who fund and profit from the war, not just the Russian economy in the abstract.

The strike extends Ukraine's deep campaign

Reaching Tobolsk marks the range of Ukraine's long-range campaign. The SOF said it continues to implement Ukraine's long-range sanctions against Russia's military-economic sector.

Striking a petrochemical complex over 2,000 kilometers inside Russia, in western Siberia, extends the deep-strike campaign far beyond the refineries and depots of European Russia. Each such strike raises the cost of the industry that funds and supplies Russia's war.