Drones target Russian nuclear facility and refinery, spark fires
On the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, during a significant drone attack on Russia, drones targeted a "nuclear energy facility" in Smolensk and a refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region. A large fire ensued.
The drone attack was reported by the region's governor, Vasily Anokhin. According to his information, the drone was shot down; "there are no casualties or damage."
According to Shot, the remains of the downed drone fell near the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which is located in the southern part of the region near the city of Desnogorsk. The plant is the largest energy enterprise in the region, supplying about 90% of the region's electricity.
The refinery in Kstovo is on fire
In the Nizhny Novgorod region, which was also targeted by drones, the remnants of the downed drone landed on the site of "one of the plants in the Kstovo industrial zone", resulting in a fire, as reported by the region's governor, Gleb Nikitin.
He wrote on his Telegram channel, "Firefighters are currently extinguishing the fire. According to preliminary information, there are no casualties."
According to the Shot channel, the drones targeted a local refinery owned by Lukoil, one of Russia's largest oil processing plants. This is another attack on this facility. Previously, a firefighting train was required to extinguish the blaze, and the damage was so significant that the refinery ceased operations for two months.
The second-largest attack this year
According to information provided by the Russian Ministry of Defence, on the previous night, air defence forces intercepted and destroyed 104 drones over nine regions of Russia.
47 drones were shot down over the Kursk region, 27 over Bryansk, 11 over Smolensk, seven over Tver, four over Belgorod, and three over Nizhny Novgorod. Another three drones were intercepted over the Kaluga region, and one each over Rostov and Leningrad.
This was the second-largest drone attack on Russia since the beginning of the year. On 24 January, the Russian regions were attacked by 121 Ukrainian drones, and on 11 January, by 85. The most significant attack occurred on 1 September of the previous year, when 158 drones targeted Russia.
