Russia's sprawling Novokuibyshevsk Oil Refinery in the Samara region is on fire on Friday, after suffering what appear to be multiple and widespread hits of a Ukrainian drone attack wave, with several pillars of smoke rising high above the complex, and seen for miles.
Curiously, news of the fresh attack emerged just hours after the Wall Street Journal reported the Zelensky government had paused refinery strikes under pressure from the Trump administration.
WSJ's reporting has been updated Friday morning in confirmation that "Ukraine struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region early on Friday, ending a two-week pause in refinery attacks that came amid heavy pressure from the Trump administration to halt such operations."
The publication reviews, "Ukrainian forces last hit an oil refinery on Oct. 15, and had not struck Russian oil infrastructure of any kind since Oct. 20. The pause took place against a background of repeated demands by Trump and other U.S. officials to stop hitting refineries."
Trump envoy Jared Kushner had reportedly asked Kiev to abide by a 30-day halt. President Zelensky later said he agreed to a brief pause in the strikes, but did so begrudgingly.
Surreal, apocalyptic scenes...
On Wednesday Ukrainian media cited direct confirmation of an energy strike pause from a closed-door meeting with reporters that happened the day before:
In the first 72 hours of the energy truce, Ukraine suspended strikes on Russian oil refineries while its forces focused on other targets, the president added.
"I said, 'Let's respond calmly by striking other targets for at least 72 hours. We won't touch the oil refineries.' That didn't help. There was all kinds of rhetoric, and no one thanked us for those three days," Zelensky said.
"There was the incident involving the Ryazan oil refinery (on Oct. 15). There were other operations as well. We targeted data centers and locations where Russian ballistic missiles are concentrated," Zelensky has also explained.
And certainly Ukraine is not happy with reports this week showing Russian oil refineries increased crude processing by 25% in the second half of October compared to the beginning of the month due to the short-lived pause in strikes, as Reuters highlighted.
The Samara region is around 500-miles from the Ukrainian border.
The refinery produces jet fuel for the Russian forces, along with producing dozens of types of petroleum products, including Euro 5-standard petrol and diesel fuel.
Novokuibyshevsk has been part of the Rosneft group since 2007, with a publicly reported annual processing capacity is approximately 8.8 million tonnes of oil.
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