During the night and morning of November 11, Ukrainian drones attacked Russia’s Saratov region, hitting Rosneft’s oil refinery in Saratov, according to Astra, which analyzed footage from the site. This marks the fifth attack on the facility since the beginning of autumn and the seventh in 2025.
The refinery’s design capacity is about 140,000 barrels of oil per day, making it one of the key suppliers of gasoline and diesel fuel to the European part of Russia. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has stated that the refinery is “involved in meeting the needs” of the Russian military.
The drone raid began around 1:00 a.m. Local aviation authorities closed Saratov Airport at 1:39 and reopened it three hours later. At 1:53, Saratov region governor Roman Busargin wrote on Telegram about a drone threat and later reported “damage to civilian infrastructure.” He did not mention the refinery.
Around 9:00 a.m., a second drone attack was reported in Saratov, according to the Ukrainian outlet Exilenova+, which claimed “explosions were heard in the city.” Rosaviatsiya confirmed a second airport closure at 8:00 a.m. “There’s also activity at the military airfield in Engels,” the outlet Krymsky Veter reported.
The previous strike on the Saratov refinery occurred on the night of November 3. Analysts from Dnipro Osint concluded that the drone attack caused a fire near the AVT-6 installation. Another drone attempted to hit the pentane-hexane isomerization unit but was stopped by an anti-drone net. Earlier attacks on the plant took place on October 16, September 20, and September 16.
