Drone strike triggers fire at Russia's Tuapse oil refinery in latest attack on Black Sea facilities

A fire broke out at the Tuapse oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar Krai on April 28 after a drone strike, the regional operational headquarters said, Kommersant reported.

Falling debris from unmanned aerial vehicles caused the blaze on the refinery's territory. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

A total of 122 personnel and 39 units of equipment have been deployed to contain the fire, including units from the Krasnodar Krai branch of Russia's Emergencies Ministry and other specialist services.

The incident is the third major drone attack on Tuapse infrastructure in recent weeks. Drones struck the city's seaport on the night of April 20, with the resulting fire taking until April 24 to extinguish. An earlier attack on the maritime terminal on the night of April 16 caused another fire that burned until April 19.

The repeated strikes have led to environmental damage. Following the series of fires and subsequent heavy rainfall, oil products from the terminal entered the Tuapse River and then the Black Sea coastal waters. Emergency response work has been organised to contain further contamination.

A petroleum products collection system has been deployed on a section of the river downstream, with simultaneous cleanup work on the coastal strip and in the marine area. By the morning of April 27, 4,200 cubic metres of soil contaminated with petroleum products and water-fuel oil mixtures had been collected from three sites.

Emergency services continue firefighting operations at the refinery and are monitoring conditions in the city and at adjacent industrial facilities. Further information on the scale of the fire and the consequences of the incident is being clarified.

Tuapse, located on Russia's Black Sea coast, is home to one of the country's principal oil export terminals and a refinery operated by Rosneft. The facility processes around 12mn tonnes of crude per year and serves as a key outlet for Russian crude and refined products to international markets via the Black Sea.

The site has been a recurring target of Ukrainian long-range drone strikes throughout the war, with attacks intensifying through 2025 and 2026 as Kyiv has sought to disrupt Russia's hydrocarbon export revenues.

The damage at Tuapse forms part of a wider pattern of strikes on Russian refining infrastructure that have periodically tightened domestic fuel supply and contributed to retail price rises in some regions.