Ukrainian drones kill 1, injure others at petrochemical plant in Russia

A Ukrainian drone strike on an industrial facility in Novokuybyshevsk, in Russia’s Samara Region, killed one person and injured others, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, said. He did not identify the facility.

Fedorishchev said debris from one of the drones landed on the roof of an apartment building in Samara, injuring several people on the street below and sending one to the hospital. He also announced that first-shift classes at schools in Samara and Novokuybyshevsk on April 23 would be moved to the second shift.

Ukrainian Telegram channels said the target was a facility belonging to the Novokuybyshevsk Petrochemical Company, part of Rosneft. The Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported that a unit producing methyl tert-amyl ether was likely damaged, describing it as “essentially a facility for producing a fuel additive from petroleum products and methanol, which improves fuel efficiency and reduces emissions.” The independent Telegram channel Astra also confirmed the attack on the Novokuybyshevsk petrochemical plant and the fire that followed.

Drones also struck the Nizhny Novgorod Region, where a fire broke out at the Gorky oil pumping station in the village of Meshikha in the Kstovsky District, Telegram channels reported. At least one storage tank was burning, the Telegram channel Exilenova+ said. No casualties were immediately reported. Governor Gleb Nikitin had not commented on the attack.

The day before, a Ukrainian drone strike in Syzran caused part of an apartment building’s entire vertical section to collapse. Rescuers found two bodies in the rubble — a woman and a girl, identified by Telegram channels as a grandmother and granddaughter. Twelve more people were injured. The damaged building sits roughly three kilometers (two miles) from the Syzran oil refinery, Telegram channels said.