Ryazan Refinery Strike: Five Refineries in One Week, and the Fuel Numbers Russia Made Secret

In brief: Ukrainian drones set Rosneft's Ryazan oil refinery burning overnight on November 5, the fifth Russian refinery hit since October 30, and the Ryazan refinery strike landed the same morning Ukrainian intelligence reported that 15 of Russia's 38 major refineries have suspended operations. The timing is the story: working-level peace talks open in Abu Dhabi on November 10, and both sides spent the night stacking leverage.

Part of our Drone Warfare coverage.

The air raid alert over Ryazan went up around 2 a.m. on Thursday, November 5, and by morning the region's governor was counting drones in the hundreds. Pavel Malkov said more than 200 Ukrainian drones attacked Ryazan Oblast overnight, that fires broke out at industrial sites, and that falling debris cut power to parts of the city, injured one person and blew out windows at a school. He never named the biggest industrial site in town. The monitoring channel Exilenova+ posted video of drones pushing through to the industrial zone of the Ryazan Oil Refinery, and an analyst at the independent Russian outlet Astra said the refinery itself was on fire.

What the Ryazan refinery strike actually hit

The Ryazan refinery strike is not a raid on just another fuel plant. The facility, run by Rosneft, processes more than 17 million tons of crude a year, which Kyiv Post ranks among Russia's three largest refineries. It sits about 500 kilometers from Ukraine, feeds Moscow and central Russia, and produces gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Astra reports the plant supplies Russia's army, including TS-1 aviation kerosene; in earlier confirmed strikes on the same plant, Ukraine's General Staff put that output at roughly 840,000 tons of TS-1 a year for Russia's Aerospace Forces.

It is also already wounded. After an October 15 strike, two industry sources told Reuters the refinery shut down one of its primary crude distillation units. As of publication, Ukraine's military had not formally claimed the November 5 attack, and the Kyiv Independent said it could not immediately verify the footage. The same night, Astra reported a fire at the Wildberries logistics center outside Ryazan, a distribution hub Militarnyi puts at roughly 173,000 square meters, while governors in Rostov and Voronezh claimed about 100 drones intercepted between them.

Five refineries in one week

An oil refinery, from ArmyInform's reporting on Ukraine's deep-strike campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. Photo: ArmyInform, CC BY 4.0

Ryazan closes a seven day arc. Per Euromaidan Press, drones hit the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in Samara Oblast on October 30, the Bashneft-Novoil plant in Ufa on October 31, Lukoil's Kstovo refinery near Nizhny Novgorod on November 1, and Slavneft-YANOS in Yaroslavl overnight on November 3, where Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said two workers were wounded. Ryazan makes five refineries since October 30; Exilenova+ counts six, including a second Ufa plant.

The tempo is the message. Ukraine briefly paused refinery strikes in mid October, after Washington pushed an energy ceasefire and Trump's diesel waiver opened a sanctions window for Russian diesel. Zelensky ended that pause on October 15, telling the Financial Times the refinery exemption "is out. We're done," the same day Neptune missiles hit Su-34 bombers at Borisoglebsk. Three weeks later the campaign is running harder than before the pause.

HUR's math: 15 of 38 refineries down

On Thursday morning, Ukraine's Defense Intelligence Directorate published its ledger of what this campaign has done. Per HUR, as reported by United24 Media, 15 of Russia's 38 major refineries had suspended operations by the end of September, and another 12 had cut production. Output at the affected plants fell 55.4 percent against the start of the year. HUR estimates the economic damage at more than 23.2 billion dollars, approaching the sector's reported 2025 revenue of 26.6 billion, with replacement equipment alone estimated above 20 billion dollars under sanctions.

The survivors are the far ones. HUR says refineries out of drone range, Omsk, Achinsk, Khabarovsk and a handful of others, pumped out about 906,000 barrels per day in September, roughly a quarter of Russia's output that month. Even that cushion is in question: Fire Point claimed its FP-1 drones flew 2,500 kilometers to reach Omsk in late October, and HUR expects output at the remote plants to fall in 2027 because maintenance planned for 2026 was postponed. Russia, it says, has begun importing fuel through gray schemes and cannot fully meet domestic demand.

These are Ukrainian intelligence figures, not independently verifiable. And that is partly by Moscow's own design: HUR notes that Putin's Decree No. 686, signed September 28, restricts disclosure of refining data, which in HUR's words "makes independent monitoring of the industry impossible." When the numbers turned against Russia, Russia classified the numbers.

The other half of the night

Aftermath of the Russian strike on Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, November 5. Photo: Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration via ArmyInform, CC BY 4.0

Russia spent the same night working its own target set. Ukraine's Air Force said Moscow launched two Kh-35 guided missiles from the Black Sea and 128 Shahed-type drones, 65 of them jet-powered; 105 drones were downed by 8 a.m., including 48 jets, with impacts at 18 locations. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed strikes on a Nova Poshta postal terminal in Novyi Korotych outside Kharkiv, a 330-kilovolt substation in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and a dry cargo ship 52 kilometers southwest of Odesa it said was carrying military equipment. Ukrainian officials did not immediately confirm the ship or postal claims, per Al Jazeera.

On the ground, the past day killed nine civilians and injured 19, per the Kyiv Independent. In Dnipro and Samar, drones injured three people and set fires at critical infrastructure, per the regional administration. In Kherson, a civilian was killed for the first time since the Oleshky evacuation truce expired on November 2. And in Komyshuvakha, the village Russia bombed during an aid distribution, police said 42 bodies have now been recovered, with 33 people still missing.

Why it matters

Every target this week points at the same table. On Monday, US envoy Steve Witkoff announced on X that working-level negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will run November 10 and 11 in Abu Dhabi, with the United States mediating, covering "post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace." US negotiators are also meeting representatives of France, Germany, the UK, the EU and NATO in Brussels this week on security guarantees and reconstruction, per Witkoff. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has said the Abu Dhabi round could prepare a meeting of the leaders.

Kyiv arrives with refineries as its leverage, the one pressure campaign that demonstrably costs Moscow money it reports losing. Moscow arrives with the grid war and a Ukrainian winter. And Washington arrives having cut aid to Kyiv to 220 million dollars in fiscal year 2026, a 99 percent drop from the peak years per Military.com, which makes leverage the only currency either side still prints itself.

What to watch

Whether Ukraine's General Staff formally claims Ryazan, and which units flew it. Whether the refinery tempo holds through the Abu Dhabi window or pauses as a goodwill token, as it did in October. How far Russia's data blackout under Decree 686 can hide fuel shortages that queues, rationing and prices keep reporting anyway. And the first hard freeze: Ukraine heads into the cold with three DTEK thermal plants knocked out of generation this week.

The channel will be watching the Abu Dhabi table and the refinery map all week on Telegram at t.me/TheLeaflet.

Read next: St. Petersburg Drone Attack: The 1,000 Drone Night That Answered Trump's Waiver and Patriot Missile Sale to Ukraine: 500 PAC-3 Interceptors Approved on the Night Kyiv's Water Went Out.

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One for the comments: if the refinery campaign is Kyiv's main card in Abu Dhabi, should Ukraine pause the strikes during the talks or keep the pressure on through them? Drop your read in the comments, or tell the channel what to cover next.

Sources

Kyiv Independent (Nov 5, 2026), Kyiv Post (Nov 5, 2026), Euromaidan Press (Nov 5, 2026), Militarnyi (Nov 5, 2026), United24 Media (Nov 5, 2026), Al Jazeera (Nov 5, 2026), ArmyInform (Nov 5, 2026), UNN (Oct 30, 2026), Military.com (Nov 3, 2026), Reuters via Kyiv Independent (Oct 15, 2026). Photos: ArmyInform (CC BY 4.0); Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration via ArmyInform (CC BY 4.0).