What Ukraine says happened
Ukraine's General Staff said on Telegram that two refineries in Russia were struck and subsequently caught fire. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted Friday on X, "We are responding to Russia's brutal strikes against life."
Where the fires were and what we know
Officials identified Lukoil PJSC's site in the Perm region and a refining facility in Novoshakhtinsk, in Russia's southern Rostov region. Rostov governor Yury Slyusar said the Novoshakhtinsk site stopped operating after a swarm of drones hit the region. Lukoil did not respond to a Bloomberg request for comment.
NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System detected heat signals consistent with potential fires in an industrial zone in Perm that includes the refinery. Separate NASA FIRMS imagery dated Sept. 25 showed fresh hotspots at the Perm refinery location.
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The Perm plant can process about 260,000 barrels a day and was previously hit by drones earlier this month. The Novoshakhtinsk facility handles roughly 110,000 barrels a day and was attacked a month ago.
Diplomacy, diesel and a grinding air war
Earlier this week in New York, Zelenskyy and Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, met independently with Trump Administration representatives on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Washington has urged both sides to pause attacks on energy infrastructure as global diesel prices climb, but there is no agreement so far.
On the ground, Russia has intensified strikes on civilian infrastructure as Ukraine contends with strained air defenses. Zelenskyy said eight Ukrainian regions were hit overnight, leaving one person dead in Odesa and another casualty, a 14-year-old boy, in Kyiv.
Why this matters for energy markets and your wallet
Kyiv has focused on refineries to squeeze Russia's capacity to produce and sell fuel while stoking domestic pressure against the war. Confronted with tighter supply, Moscow has temporarily curbed most fuel exports, including motor gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. The White House is considering whether to curb US diesel exports to bring down prices domestically. If refineries remain in the crosshairs and policy curbs expand, that keeps fuel markets jumpy, and jumpy fuel markets tend to show up in everything from airline tickets to grocery deliveries.
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