On the night of January 29, drones attacked the Lukoil oil depot in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region, Russia.
The facility was hit around midnight local time. Eyewitnesses reported at least three explosions, while sources confirmed four direct hits on the oil depot.
As a result of the attack, the enterprise suffered significant damage, with all four drones reaching their targets.
According to Andrii Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, the affected oil depot has a processing capacity of 15 to 17 million tons of oil annually, making it the fourth largest in Russia. He also highlighted its importance for the Russian military.
The facility had previously been targeted by drones in early spring 2024, requiring a fire train to extinguish the blaze.
On the night of January 29, during a massive drone attack on the Smolensk region, one of the drones attempted to strike a "nuclear energy facility," according to regional governor Vasily Anokhin. He claimed the drone was shot down, with "no casualties or damage."
According to Shot, the debris of the destroyed drone fell near the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), located in the southern part of the region near the city of Desnogorsk. The plant is the largest energy facility in the area, supplying about 90% of the region's electricity.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense reported that air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 104 drones over nine regions during the night. This included 47 drones over the Kursk region, 27 over Bryansk, 11 over Smolensk, seven over Tver, four over Belgorod, three over Nizhny Novgorod, three over Kaluga, and one each over Rostov and Leningrad regions.
This was the second-largest drone attack on Russia since the beginning of the year, according to The Moscow Times. On January 24, Russian regions were targeted by 121 Ukrainian drones, and on January 11, by 85. The largest attack to date occurred on September 1, 2023, when 158 drones were launched.
