# Ukraine says drone wave hit Ryazan refinery in one of the war’s biggest strikes inside Russia
Ukraine says it carried out a major drone attack that hit a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region and targeted other sites inside Russia, in what the BBC describes as one of the largest drone operations of the war. Russian authorities said they intercepted 121 drones across 13 regions.
The evidence packet says verified video footage showed a fireball rising over the refinery and pumping station in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow. Ukrainian officials said the site had been a target, and BBC Verify matched fires at different parts of the complex by using road layouts, signs, fences and surrounding features. That makes the refinery strike the clearest confirmed element of the attack.
Kyiv also said the Kremniy factory in Bryansk was hit. According to the BBC report, Russian state media cited a statement from the factory saying work was suspended after an attack by six drones. Ukraine says the factory produces missile components and other weapons. The attack therefore appears to have targeted both energy infrastructure and military-industry capacity.
Russia, for its part, portrayed the operation as a failure. The Kremlin acknowledged the attacks but said there was no damage or casualties. Moscow said six drones were intercepted over the capital region and additional drones were shot down over Ryazan and Bryansk. The mayor of Moscow said air defences stopped drones at four locations, while airports briefly suspended flights before resuming operations.
The BBC report also includes the human cost of Russia's own overnight attacks on Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said three people were killed and one injured when a Russian drone struck a residential building in the Kyiv region. That reminder matters because the war's aerial campaign is now reciprocal: both sides are using drones to hit infrastructure, industry and civilian areas.
The refinery strike is significant not only because of the size of the drone wave but because oil infrastructure has become a recurring target in the war. Hitting a refinery near Moscow carries symbolic and practical weight, especially when accompanied by verified footage that suggests substantial fire damage.
The report does not provide an independent damage assessment from the site itself, and the Kremlin's claims of no damage cannot be verified from the packet. Still, the combination of Ukrainian statements and BBC Verify's location work makes clear that at least one major fire occurred at the Ryazan facility.
The wider battlefield context is a war increasingly defined by deep strikes rather than only front-line fighting. The BBC report notes that Russian forces have expanded control in parts of eastern Ukraine over the past year, while Ukrainian forces continue to launch counter-attacks and long-range drone strikes into Russian territory.
For Russian authorities, the immediate challenge is defence and continuity. For Ukraine, the attack serves as another demonstration of its ability to hit strategic targets far from the front. The refinery fire in Ryazan, if confirmed in full damage terms later, may become one more marker of how the conflict has shifted into a prolonged contest over industrial vulnerability and air-defence capacity.
