Ukraine hits the Samara oil hub that blends Urals crude and the Lipetsk-2 air base, its General Staff says

Ukrainian forces struck the “Samara” linear production and dispatch station (LPDS) on Friday, November 13, the hub where Russia’s Urals export blend is produced, and the Lipetsk-2 air base. Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed both strikes on Saturday, November 14. The station is near the settlement of Prosvet in the Samara region, where, according to the General Staff, a fire broke out and several oil tanks are burning. The operation in Samara was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which says long-range drones of its “Alpha” Special Operations Centre were used.

The General Staff describes the station as the “heart” of the Russian oil industry. Crude arrives there through trunk pipelines from Tatarstan, Western Siberia and other Russian production areas. The SBU explains that oil with different sulphur content is blended at the station to produce the Urals export grade, which accounts for up to 50% of Russian oil exports. The service speaks of preliminary confirmation that storage tanks were hit. “Every tank hit in Samara directly strikes the main source of money from which the aggressor pays for missiles, drones and the war against Ukraine,” the General Staff writes.

On the Russian side, Samara Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev wrote on VKontakte on Friday that Ukrainian forces attacked “one of the industrial enterprises” of the region in the morning. “With sorrow I announce that four people were killed,” he said, adding that there are also injured receiving medical help. He did not name the enterprise. The station belongs to the Russian pipeline company Transneft and, according to the Russian-language independent site The Insider, suffered its fifth attack since early October, the previous one on the night of November 2.

Lipetsk-2 air base

In Lipetsk, the General Staff says the results of the November 13 strike were confirmed on the base where Russian military aviation is stationed. A hangar storing special aircraft maintenance equipment, an aviation fuel tank and the airfield’s central flight command and control post were hit. The base is more than 340 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and hosts Su-34, Su-35 and MiG-31 fighters, as the Kyiv Independent notes. The Lipetsk region was one of the regions on the Russian Ministry of Defence’s list for the night of Thursday into Friday, when Moscow claimed it shot down 1,198 Ukrainian drones.

The strikes are part of a series of Ukrainian long-range attacks on Russian military and energy infrastructure. The same night Neptune missiles hit drone facilities in Rostov-on-Don, while two days earlier drones had caused a fire at the port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic. The Samara station is about 950 kilometres from the territory controlled by Ukraine. The General Staff cites, as in its previous announcements, the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter and closes with the phrase “to be continued.”