Ukrainian drones attacked the Lukoil-Permnefteorgsintez (PNOS) refinery in Perm on the morning of July 29, Governor Dmitry Makhonin said. According to him, there were no casualties and several drones were shot down on approach.
The fire broke out at an oil processing unit, Astra reported, citing eyewitness footage. Ukrainian monitoring channels published video of black smoke rising above the plant. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) confirmed the strike, saying a primary oil refining unit had caught fire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a continuation of "long-range sanctions," adding that "Russia must feel that every day of this war will cost it more and more."
PNOS is one of Russia's largest refineries, processing more than 13 million tons of oil per year and producing 2 million tons of gasoline and 5.3 million tons of diesel. It is Lukoil's second-largest plant after its Nizhny Novgorod facility.
This was the fourth attack on the refinery in three months. Previous strikes occurred on April 30, May 7 and May 8, each causing fires. After the April and May attacks, the plant halted operations, Reuters reported. In May, primary processing units AVT-5 (34% of capacity), AVT-1 and AVT-2 (14% of capacity) were shut down in an emergency.
The Telegram channel "Perm 36.6" noted that Makhonin's statement after this attack was word-for-word identical to his post after the May strike.
Since the start of July, seven major refineries, including Perm, have halted fuel production: Tyumen (July 25), Gazpromneftekhim Salavat (July 14), Syzran (July 12), Saratov (July 8), Omsk (July 6) and Lukoil's Nizhny Novgorod refinery (July 2).
According to the Financial Times, Ukraine has shifted its refinery strike tactics from setting fires to precision strikes on critical components that are difficult to replace and time-consuming to repair. Before missions, drone operators receive briefings from engineers on which specific pipelines or chimneys to target. A separate element of the tactic is repeated strikes on the same equipment before repairs are completed.
Bloomberg reported that as early as June, experts at the Carnegie Endowment (designated an "undesirable" organization in Russia) noted a shift in strikes from primary units to secondary ones, which are more complex and expensive to repair due to sanctions on imported equipment. By mid-July, Russia's refining output had fallen to a 21-year low.