Informative · Oil markets

Ukraine just bombed a Russian refinery and denied pausing its strikes

1 hour ago · 31 October 2026Share

Black smoke rises from a fire at a Russian oil refinery. — Black smoke rises from a fire at a Russian oil refinery in Moscow on June 18, 2026. Rotafinus · CC0

Ukraine just hit a Russian oil refinery deep inside Russia.

And that's a day after the Wall Street Journal said Kyiv had quietly agreed to stop doing exactly that.

So what actually happened? Ukrainian drones struck the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in Russia's Samara Oblast about a day ago.

The refinery belongs to Rosneft, Russia's state oil company. It can process around 8.8 million tonnes of oil a year. It makes diesel and petrol. But it's also one of Russia's main sources of jet fuel, and it supplies the Russian military.

Fire Point, the Ukrainian defence manufacturer, says its FP-1 drones hit the refinery, including a diesel hydrotreating unit. Footage shared online showed thick columns of smoke rising from the site.

Alexander Novak, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, says Ukraine actually hit three Russian oil refineries and a gas-chemical complex that day. Novak says quote "we had a brief pause, but today, attacks on refineries have resumed".

Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, the governor of Samara Oblast, says air defence and mobile fire crews responded. He later said two people died in the region while clearing up after the attack. That detail has only been reported once.

Now here's why the timing matters so much.

Two days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ukrainian forces had been told to stop hitting Russian refineries, under pressure from the Trump administration. The pause was expected to run until after the US midterm elections on 3 November.

Four days ago, Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv that Ukrainian forces tried to be a little more careful during those days, but that they did not have an order to stop.

Careful is not the same as stopped.

A senior Ukrainian official went further than that, telling the Kyiv Independent that Jared Kushner, the US special envoy, suggested a 30-day pause on refinery strikes. He reportedly repeated the request at a meeting with Zelensky in Oslo on 20 October.

But the official said no order to stop was ever given. And nobody in Kyiv knew where the Wall Street Journal's account had come from.

The rest of this story is for members.

Zelensky himself hasn't directly claimed this strike. On the day of the attack he said quote "every Russian strike on our cities and communities always gets our fully justified response".

That's a general statement about retaliation. It's not a claim of responsibility for this specific refinery.

A second senior Ukrainian official said Ukraine plans to keep striking Russian oil infrastructure. But it won't publicly take credit for it, so it doesn't look like it's deliberately provoking the Trump administration.

And this isn't the first time this has happened.

After Donald Trump announced an energy truce between Russia and Ukraine on 11 October, Ukraine held off hitting refineries for about 72 hours. Then it resumed, once it was clear Russia wasn't honouring the truce either. Russia hit Kharkiv's CHP-5 power plant with a cruise missile hours after Trump's announcement, according to the Kyiv Independent.

This strike also ends a gap of its own. Euromaidan Press reports it was the first known Ukrainian strike on a Russian refinery in nearly two weeks. Before that came a strike on a Ryazan refinery on 15 October, and a strike on a Druzhba pipeline pumping station in Tambov Oblast on 20 October. This same refinery was hit before, in August, in a strike that started a fire.

So what has Washington said about all this? Nothing, so far.

A US official told the Kyiv Independent that Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil infrastructure have been met with a shrug in Washington. A person close to the US administration told the outlet that the CIA is still supplying Ukraine with intelligence on Russian air defences to support the strikes. Both of those are from unnamed people, and not confirmed elsewhere.

Here's what we still don't know. Whether Kushner's request ever became a formal American position. Why the Wall Street Journal reported a pause that Ukrainian officials say never existed. And whether Donald Trump will respond publicly, now that Ukrainian drones have hit a refinery less than four days before the US midterm elections he was reportedly trying to protect.

Comments

None yet

Already a member? Log in.

Ukraine just bombed a Russian refinery and denied pausing its strikes

Comments

Related reporting

Ukraine just bombed the steelworks that arms Russia's war machine

America just warned Russia of a mass casualty attack in Moscow

Turkey just pushed into the Ukraine peace process and Russia has gone silent