New Drone Attacks After Ukraine Hits Oil Facilities Deep Inside Russia

KYIV -- Russia fired dozens of drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian officials said on September 14, a day after Romania reported that a Russian drone entered its airspace and Ukraine struck two major Russian oil refineries as part of Kyiv's effort to blunt Moscow's ability to wage war.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down or neutralized 52 of the 58 Russian drones that were detected, the air force said, while six drones and an Iskander ballistic missile hit the ground, as well as debris from two of the downed drones. No casualties were reported.

Separately, a 54-year-old man was killed in an artillery strike in the Kherson region and a 60-year-old man was wounded when a drone fired by Russian forces on the ground hit a minibus in the Zaporizhzhya region, officials said. Russia baselessly claims both regions as its own, along with Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea.

The second night of relatively light air attacks came as Russia and Ukraine's northern neighbor Belarus carried out large-scale military drills and amid continuing uncertainty over whether the United States will impose new sanctions on Russia over the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

Massive Russian Air Strikes Hit Kyiv In Record Barrage

Russia has frequently fired hundreds of projectiles at Ukraine on previous nights, often killing and wounding civilians. The largest barrage came on September 7, when Ukraine said Russia fired more than 800 drones and missiles in an attack that focused mainly on Kyiv, where three people including an infant were killed.

Heavy fighting continues along the front in eastern and southern Ukraine and particularly in the Donetsk region, where Russian forces have been seeking to control the city of Pokrovsk for months and are now pressing on Kupyansk, a Kharkiv region city that Ukraine took back in a counteroffensive in the fall of 2022.

A sustained lull in drone and missile attacks, if it occurs, could signal an effort by Russia to get the United States to put more blame on Ukraine for the lack of success of efforts by US President Donald Trump to broker an end to the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on September 14 that Russia shot down 361 Ukrainian drones over the previous 24 hours.

SEE ALSO: Europe Faces Critical Challenges in Countering Russian Drone Threats

Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose new, tougher sanctions on Russia, which has rejected calls for a cease-fire, but so far has not done so. In a social media post on September 13, Trump said he would be "ready to do major sanctions on Russia when all NATO nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO nations stop buying oil from Russia.”

He said NATO nations should impose tariffs of 50-100 percent on imports from China.

The European Union has drastically reduced imports of Russian oil and gas since the start of the full-scale invasion and plans to phase them out by 2028 but deliveries continue, mainly to NATO members Hungary and Slovakia. Turkey, also a NATO member, has been the third-largest buyer of Russian oil since 2023, according to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

US Lawmakers Promote Sanctions Bill

Two Republican US lawmakers who are seeking the passage of a bill to impose new sanctions on Russia said on September 13 that they will push to get their draft law connected to legislation that must pass to keep the federal government operating when the new fiscal year starts on October 1.

"This week, we will be urging our colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to join us in advancing this legislation and standing with freedom against tyranny," Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

"We firmly believe the combination of sanctions and tariffs, along with the sale of high-end American weapons to Ukraine, is the key to bringing [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to the table for a just and honorable peace," they said.

SEE ALSO: The Military And Monetary Impact Of Ukraine's Deep Strikes In Russia

Ukraine Targeting Russian Energy Facilities

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that strikes on energy facilities, some of them deep inside Russia, were part of an effort to do "everything possible...to reduce Russia's ability to fight."

"Our deep strikes will intensify," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

Officials in Russia's Bashkortostan region said on September 13 that a fire broke out at one of the country's largest oil facilities, near the regional capital, Ufa, when debris from two Ukrainian drones fell on the site.

"Both downed drones fell on the grounds of the enterprise," regional head Radiy Khabirov wrote on Telegram. Ufa is about 1,400 kilometers from the front lines in Ukraine.

Three hours later, Aleksandr Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region in Russia's northwest, said the massive Kirishi oil refinery was also hit by falling debris from Ukrainian drones, sparking a fire early on September 14.

SEE ALSO: Trump Urges NATO To Stop Buying Russian Oil, Impose Tariffs On China

Ukraine's General Staff said Ukrainian drone forces struck the refinery and damage was being assessed. Kirishi refines about 17.7 million metric tons of Russian crude a year (355,000 barrels per day), or 6.4 percent of the country's total.

Russian officials also said a Ukrainian drone strike hit an "industrial enterprise" in the Perm region near the Ural Mountains, more than 1,500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Details were not immediately available.

Reuters reported that Ukrainian strikes as of the end of August had disabled 17 percent of the Russian oil refining industry, threatening to intensify fuel shortages and cause a major hit to the Kremlin's budget from lost revenue.

Russian Drones In Romanian Airspace

Romania's Defense Ministry said the NATO nation's airspace had been violated by a drone during a Russian attack on infrastructure in Ukraine on September 13.

In a statement on September 14, the Romanian Defense Ministry said two Romanian F-16 jets intercepted the drone, which was in Romanian airspace for 50 minutes, and were given authorization to shoot it down but "assessed the collateral risks and decided not to open fire."

SEE ALSO: NATO Launches 'Eastern Sentry' To Bolster Defenses Near Russia

On September 10, at least 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, severely raising tensions between NATO and Moscow. On September 12, the Western military alliance said it launched Eastern Sentry, a mission to bolster defenses of allied countries near Russia.

Late on September 13, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that Polish and other air resources were back in action.

"Due to the threat of Russian drones operating over Ukraine near the Polish border, a preventive operation of the air forces, both Polish and allied, has begun. Ground-based air defense systems have reached a state of highest readiness," he wrote.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service and RFE/RL's Romanian Service, Reuters, and AP