Drone debris sparks fire at Russian oil refinery, prompting evacuation of nearby residents

Drone debris struck an oil refinery in Tuapse in the early hours of April 28, setting it on fire, the operational headquarters of Krasnodar Krai reported.

There are no casualties, the headquarters said. No other consequences have been reported.

City Mayor Sergei Boyko urged residents of several streets near the refinery to evacuate and go to a temporary shelter set up at a local school.

The independent environmental outlet Kedr Media reported that “enormous black columns of smoke” were hanging over the city. “There’s a smell of burning. Most people are walking around without respirators or in simple medical masks. They say they’ve gotten used to the smell and can’t feel it anymore — which is very dangerous, because you can get poisoned that way,” the outlet quoted its correspondent as saying. She also said the Tuapse River contained “black streams that stand out sharply from the color of the water and look like petroleum products.”

Local residents reported explosions over the city and air defense activity around 2 a.m. They told the Russian Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti that the drone attack had been going on for several hours.

The independent Telegram channel Astra published footage of thick smoke from city cameras and confirmed that the Tuapse oil refinery in the seaport was on fire, having already come under attack multiple times in recent days.

Ukrainian Telegram channels also published footage of the attack on the marine terminal and the fire at the refinery.

The Tuapse oil refinery has been under attack since mid-April. A fire ignited in one of those attacks took four days to extinguish, triggering an environmental disaster: “oil rains” fell on the city, soot filled the air, and permissible concentrations of benzene and xylene were exceeded by a factor of two to three. The day after open burning was brought under control, heavy rains washed petroleum products from the river into the sea. Authorities downplayed the scale of the disaster — residents were advised only to keep their windows closed, go outside as little as possible, and wear masks — and classes in schools were not canceled despite the air pollution.