Drones strike Lukoil refinery at Kstovo overnight, setting fires, as Russia says more than 100 drones were downed in the region
Ukrainian monitoring channels and Ukrainian media report that drones struck the Lukoil refinery at Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region overnight into 1 November, starting fires, while the regional governor confirmed significant damage to an industrial facility without naming it.
Drones struck an industrial complex at Kstovo in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region overnight into Sunday, 1 November, starting large fires, according to Ukrainian monitoring channels and Ukrainian media, in the latest long-range attack on Russian energy infrastructure. Russian authorities confirmed that a major drone attack had taken place in the region and that an industrial facility had suffered significant damage, although the regional governor did not name the facility in his public statement.
The reports identified the target as the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery, often called the NORSI refinery, at Kstovo, about 450 kilometres east of Moscow and roughly 800 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. The Kyiv Independent reported that the refinery was targeted overnight on 1 November, citing the Exilenova+ and Supernova+ monitoring channels, which published footage said to show fires at the site. The Kyiv Post reported that both the refinery and the neighbouring Novogorkovskaya combined heat and power plant were attacked, with multiple large fires across the industrial complex.
The sequence described by the reporting began in the early hours of Sunday. An alert over the threat of drone attacks in the Nizhny Novgorod region was issued at 01:01 Moscow time, and local residents began reporting air-defence activity and explosions at the plant between about 02:51 and 03:08. Footage circulating from Kstovo around 04:00 local time showed large blazes lighting up the skyline, with residents reporting repeated loud detonations and the sound of low-flying drone engines over the industrial zone.
Nizhny Novgorod Governor Gleb Nikitin said in a statement on his Telegram channel that an intensive drone attack was under way in the region during the night and into the morning, and that more than 100 drones had been destroyed. He added that, according to preliminary information, there were no casualties, and that an industrial facility in the Kstovsky district had sustained significant damage. Emergency crews were reported to be working at the scene.
Russia's Ministry of Defence said its air defences had shot down 235 drones overnight across 17 regions of the country, a figure that has not been independently confirmed. The difference between the governor's regional figure of more than 100 drones destroyed and the ministry's nationwide figure reflects the scale of the attack as described by Russian officials, but neither figure has been verified by independent sources, and the precise extent of the damage at Kstovo remains unclear.
The refinery at Kstovo is one of Russia's largest. Reports put its design capacity at about 17 million metric tons of crude a year, or roughly 340,000 barrels a day, making it Russia's fourth-largest refinery and its second-largest producer of petrol. It produces diesel and aviation fuel among other products, and supplies fuel not only to the Russian military but also to the Moscow region, according to Ukrainian media. That scale is why strikes on the site carry significance well beyond the local area, affecting fuel supply chains in central Russia.
The facility has been struck before. Ukrainian media reported that it had already been attacked by drones in April, May and August 2026, and the Kyiv Independent noted a confirmed strike on 26 August that sparked a large fire and led the refinery to suspend operations because of the damage sustained. The latest reported attack is the third refinery strike in recent days, following reported attacks on refineries in Ufa and the Samara region, according to monitoring channels cited in the coverage.
The strike fits a sustained Ukrainian campaign during 2026 against Russian oil refineries, fuel depots and other energy facilities, which Kyiv regards as critical to sustaining Russia's war effort. Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent that Kyiv had never agreed to pause strikes on Russian refineries, a point that surfaced in separate reporting on the same day. At the same time, Russia launched 168 strike drones at Ukraine over 31 October, of which 122 were neutralised, according to Ukraine's Air Force, showing that the long-range drone war continued in both directions overnight.
What remains unconfirmed is important to state plainly. The Kyiv Independent itself noted that its report could not be immediately verified, and Russian officials have not confirmed that the damaged facility is the Lukoil refinery, even though Ukrainian and Russian monitoring channels have identified it as such. The reported strikes on the AVT-6 and AVT-5 processing units, and on a visbreaking unit, come from monitoring channels rather than from an official statement by Lukoil or the Russian authorities, and no casualty figure beyond the governor's preliminary statement of none has been published.
The immediate consequences will depend on how much damage the refinery sustained and how long any shutdown lasts. A prolonged outage at a plant of this size would tighten fuel supplies in central Russia and add to the pressure on an energy sector that has already absorbed repeated strikes this year. For now, the picture is of a major overnight attack, a large fire, a confirmed damaged industrial site, and a dispute over the details that only official confirmation from the plant operator or further verified reporting can settle.
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