05/21/2026

A series of powerful explosions rocked the city of Syzran, Samara Oblast, Russia, on the morning of May 21. After an airstrike was declared in the region, a fire broke out at a local oil refinery.

Eyewitnesses confirmed the arrival of UAVs at the refinery and published corresponding videos with confirmation. Monitoring Telegram channels write about this.

New strikes on Russia

The Governor of the Samara Region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, announced the announcement of an air alert in the region at around 4:00 a.m. The official also said that due to the drone attack, the “Carpet” plan was implemented throughout the region, due to which passenger air traffic was paralyzed.

For their part, residents of Syzran complained that explosions began to ring out in the city shortly after the airstrike was announced. The Russians also confirmed that UAVs had attacked an oil refinery.

The published footage confirms that after the attack, a fire broke out on the territory of the refinery and a huge column of black smoke is rising.

Monitoring channels report that one of the oil processing units at the refinery is on fire. Residents of Syzran heard at least 10 explosions in the morning.

NASA’s FIRMS mapping web service, which tracks fire locations around the world in near real time, confirms that arrivals have been recorded at the Syzran refinery. As of the morning of May 21, heat signatures are recording a fire around the perimeter of the refinery.

What is known about the company?

Syzran Oil Refinery (SNPZ) is one of the oldest and key refineries of the Samara Group of Rosneft. The plant is of strategic importance for supplying the central regions of the Russian Federation, the Volga region, and is also an important link in the logistics chain of the Russian army and the defense-industrial complex.

Design capacity: 8.5-8.9 million tons of crude oil per year. Actual processing volumes have dropped significantly due to regular UAV attacks due to damage to facilities and repairs. For example, last year the plant processed about 4.3 million tons of oil (approximately half of the design capacity).

The Syzran Refinery is directly tied to meeting the needs of the defense sector and the logistics of the armed forces in several areas. The plant is technologically oriented towards the production of high-quality Euro-5 diesel fuel and winter grades of diesel fuel.

The refinery produces environmentally friendly low-sulfur marine fuel RMLS 40. This is critically important for the logistical support of the auxiliary fleet and warships of the Russian Navy.

Vulnerability and current status

The Syzran Refinery has become a regular target for Ukrainian long-range kamikaze drones, being attacked in March 2024, February, August, November, and December 2025.

The main vulnerability of the enterprise is the primary oil refining units (in particular, ELOU-AVT-6). This is the “heart” of the plant: without the primary separation of oil into fractions, all subsequent high-tech processes (cracking, reforming, hydrotreating) are left without raw materials.

Damage to the AVT-6 distillation columns due to the specifics and uniqueness of the equipment always leads to long-term downtime (from two weeks to a month or more) or to a complete temporary stoppage of processing at the enterprise. Each such stoppage forces Rosneft to redirect logistical flows, which creates a local deficit, hits export potential and forces the military structures to use reserve storage bases or supply shoulders from more distant refineries.

As a reminder, on May 19, an airstrike was declared in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, after which numerous explosions were heard in the region. Ukrainian UAVs attacked an oil refinery in the region.

As OBOZ.UA reported, almost all large oil refineries in central Russia are now either completely shut down or have reduced fuel production after attacks by Ukrainian drones in recent days.

https://war.obozrevatel.com/ukr/u-sizrani-atakovano-npz-pislya-vibuhiv-stalasya-pozhezha-pidnyavsya-dim-foto-i-video.htm