Fire caused by drones at oil refinery in Russia's Yaroslavl has been extinguished, governor says

Emergency crews in Russia's Yaroslavl region have extinguished a major oil refinery fire caused by a Ukrainian drone attack, with no reported fatalities.

Emergency crews have extinguished a ​major oil refinery in ‌Russia's Yaroslavl ​region after a big Ukrainian drone attack, Mikhail Evrayev, the regional governor, said on Thursday.

"The fire in the fuel ‌tanks, caused by falling drone debris, has been put out as quickly as possible," Evrayev said on Telegram. He said 102 firefighters and 47 pieces of equipment had ‌been dispatched to fight the blaze. Unverified images posted on social media had ‌showed plumes of thick black smoke rising over the facility, some 250 km (160 miles) northeast of Moscow.

Evrayev had earlier said air defence units had repelled "the largest attack by enemy drones. All 93 ⁠drones ​were shot down ⁠by air defence and electronic warfare units." He said four people had received shrapnel wounds, but that nobody ⁠had been killed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram earlier on Thursday that the ​Ukrainian military had hit two Russian oil refineries - the Bashneft-Novoil refinery in ⁠the republic of Bashkortostan, and the Slavneft-Yanos refinery in the Yaroslavl region. There was no immediate comment ⁠from Russian ​officials in Bashkortostan. Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russian oil refineries in recent months, causing fuel shortages that authorities have stabilised in many parts ⁠of Russia though government officials say problems remain in some areas.

The refinery in ⁠Yaroslavl - which has ⁠been targeted by Ukraine before - has a processing capacity of 15 million metric tons per year, or around 300,000 barrels per ‌day.