Yaroslavl oil refinery in Russia ablaze: authorities deny drone involvement

A fire broke out at an oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl on Wednesday 1 October and authorities are insisting that the incident was not caused by a drone attack.

Source: Mikhail Yevrayev, Governor of Yaroslavl Oblast, on Telegram; Russian TV channel Dozhd; Russian Telegram channels Astra and Sota

Details: According to Yevrayev, residents feared the fire had been caused by a drone strike. "But what happened is in no way related to that. No UAV attacks were recorded today," he wrote.

Yevrayev claimed that the fire was of a technical nature, and firefighters were working to extinguish it.

As Astra notes, the Novo-Yaroslavl oil refinery processes fuel and lubricants. In terms of hydrocarbon processing capacity, it ranks among Russia's five largest refineries and is the biggest in the Central Federal District.

It is the main processing asset of the vertically integrated company Slavneft, 99.7% of whose shares are jointly controlled by Russian energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom.

Background:

• On the night of 25-26 September, drones attacked the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar Krai, causing a fire at one of the units.
• On the night of 27-28 August 2025, Ukrainian defence forces had already hit this facility in Krasnodar Krai.

Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!