Russian officials say fuel leaked and caught fire at the NORSI oil refinery in Primorsk.
Published on 5 April 2026
Ukrainian drones have attacked Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk and the NORSI oil refinery in the central Nizhny Novgorod region, according to Robert Brovdy, commander of the Ukrainian Drone Force.
The overnight attacks were first reported by Russian officials on Sunday.
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Alexander Drozdenko, the governor of Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region, initially said a pipeline in Primorsk, one of Russia’s main oil export outlets, had been damaged. He later said in a post on Telegram that the leak was caused by shrapnel in a fuel store in the port area.
In Nizhny Novgorod, Governor Gleb Nikitin said a fire had broken out at the NORSI oil refinery, Russia’s fourth-largest. He said two facilities at the plant were affected.
He said a power station and several houses were damaged during the attack, although according to preliminary information no one was injured.
Primorsk, which is between the Finnish border and St Petersburg, was also attacked in March when an oil depot was set on fire.
This port is used by Russia’s oil transportation company Transneft to ship oil abroad.
NORSI, which is also Russia’s second-largest gasoline producer, can process 16 million metric tons of oil per year, or about 320,000 barrels per day.
war financing
Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian oil infrastructure in recent months in an effort to cut off a key source of revenue that finances Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
Sometime last month, about 40 percent of Russia’s oil export capacities were shut down due to the attacks, the closure of the Druzhba pipeline in Ukraine and the seizure of tankers belonging to Russia.
Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine have stalled in recent months.
The United States, Russia and Ukraine have held three rounds of high-level talks in Abu Dhabi and Geneva this year to negotiate an end to the war. No progress was made on the important question of territorial concessions in eastern Ukraine.
A fourth round of talks scheduled for last month were postponed due to the US-Israel war over Iran.
