Ukrainian drone strike knocks out NORSI, Lukoil's last working major refinery in Russia
Ukraine's military confirmed a drone strike overnight on Russia's NORSI oil refinery, its fourth-largest, leaving all three of Lukoil's major refineries offline at once, per Reuters and Ukrinform.
Ukraine's General Staff confirmed a drone strike overnight on August 26, 2026, on Russia's NORSI oil refinery (Lukoil-Nizhegorodorgsintez) near Kstovo in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, causing a fire and halting oil processing. Three industry sources told Reuters the attack damaged several processing units, inter-unit infrastructure and general plant facilities, and could not say how long repairs would take. NORSI is Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery and second-largest gasoline producer, with a normal annual capacity of about 15 million metric tons of crude oil. It is the third major Lukoil refinery to go offline in just over a month: the Volgograd refinery suspended processing on July 31 and the Perm refinery halted operations after a drone attack on August 21. President Zelensky said Ukraine struck 16 targets inside Russia in a single day this week, including oil facilities, a military enterprise, logistics, airfields and a missile unit. NORSI lies nearly 800 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.