Fire Hits Bashneft-Novoil Refinery in Ufa After Drone Attack

A fire broke out at the Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Ufa in the early hours of October 31, after a drone attack threat was declared across Bashkortostan at around 3:00 local time. About an hour later, residents of the city, some 1,400 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, posted reports of sounds resembling explosions.

The incident was reported by the independent Russian publication ASTRA and the monitoring channel Exilenova+. Neither the number of drones, the extent of the damage, nor any disruption to refinery operations has been independently confirmed.

Which unit is burning?

Bashneft-Novoil sits in Ufa's Northern Industrial Zone, home to three large refineries. A preliminary analysis of eyewitness photographs, published by ASTRA, links the fire to the plant's L-35 catalytic reforming unit. That assessment has not been verified.

The L-35 matters. Catalytic reforming produces reformate, a high-octane gasoline component, and the unit also yields hydrogen used in fuel purification. A failure there could hamper the refinery's operations, though no official announcement of a production shutdown or specific damage has been made.

Local internet groups have carried allegations that two plants were struck. Exilenova+ reports three separate fire outbreaks at sites believed to be two refineries in Ufa. Again, none of this is confirmed.

How big is the Ufa complex?

The Ufa refining complex is one of Russia's largest, and it belongs squarely to Rosneft:

• Three plants — Bashneft-Novoil, Bashneft-UNPZ and Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim — operate under the Bashneft group, controlled by Rosneft.
• Combined crude capacity reaches 23.5 million tons per year.
• The complex produces gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation kerosene and industrial oils.

Any sustained outage across even one of the three sites would touch a meaningful slice of Russian fuel supply. For now, there is no official word on whether throughput has been affected.

Is this the first strike on Ufa?

No. In early August, a drone attack on Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim was reported in the region. At the time, the head of Bashkortostan said the smoke came from debris of a downed drone, not a direct hit.

The pattern fits a wider campaign of long-range Ukrainian strikes against Russian refining assets, though the source material reports this incident without attributing responsibility and without independent confirmation of the drones' origin.

What happens next?

The watch items are straightforward: an official damage assessment from Bashneft or Rosneft, any declaration of a turnaround or shutdown at the L-35 unit, and confirmation — or otherwise — of the reported second-site fires. Satellite imagery will likely settle the question of whether the August and October incidents share a target list. Until then, the 23.5-million-ton complex stays officially running on paper.