Russia says it put out fire at large oil refinery after latest Ukrainian drone attack

MOSCOW, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that a fire at an oil refinery in its southern Krasnodar region had been put out after a Ukrainian drone attack, part of a rolling campaign by Kyiv to strike the most important sector of President Vladimir Putin's economy.

Kyiv has this month stepped up drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and exporting infrastructure to show it can fight back as the United States seeks to broker a peace deal.

Ukrainian attacks on 10 plants have disrupted at least 17% of Russia's refinery capacity, or 1.1 million barrels per day, according to Reuters calculations this week.

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday its drones had hit the Afipsky refinery in the Krasnodar region which it said was involved in supplying the Russian army with fuel.

It said its drones had also struck another facility - the Kuibyshev refinery - in Russia's Samara region, where it said a fire had broken out.

There was no official Russian confirmation of a strike on Samara, although the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement that it had shot down or intercepted 102 Ukrainian drones overnight in seven regions, including Samara.

Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, the governor of Samara, said 21 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed and that a fire which broke out as a result of the attack had been quickly put out.

He complained in a statement of what he called "attempts to destroy our infrastructure objects," but did not say what had caught fire and told residents not to share video or photos documenting the aftermath of the attack.

The scale of the damage to the Krasnodar facility was not immediately clear. According to industry sources, it processed 7.2 million metric tons of crude oil in 2024 and 3 million tons in January-June 2025.

Several regions in Russia and parts of Ukraine it controls have reported gasoline shortages this month after Ukraine stepped up its attacks amid a seasonal surge in fuel demand.

Russia imposed a gasoline export ban for oil producers on July 28 in a bid to prevent shortages at a time of peak demand because of summer travel and grain harvesting.