ASTRA: Drone strikes trigger fires at Russian oil pipeline hub, petrochemical plant PHOTO / VIDEO

A drone attack caused a fire at the “Gorky” oil pumping station in the Kstovo district of Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, according to OSINT analysis by ASTRA and residents who reported explosions and smoke early on April 23.

Based on footage from eyewitnesses, the fire broke out at the “Gorky” NPS facility, part of the Transneft-Upper Volga system, located in the village of Meshikha. No official information on casualties has been released, and regional authorities have not yet commented.

The “Gorky” station is described as one of the major hubs in the Transneft pipeline network.

Separately, reports from Russia’s Samara region indicate a drone strike on the Novokuibyshevsk petrochemical complex, where a fire also broke out following explosions. The regional governor confirmed an attack on an industrial facility in Novokuibyshevsk and reported one fatality and several injuries.

The Novokuibyshevsk petrochemical enterprise, part of Rosneft’s system, is one of the largest producers of gas-processing and petrochemical products in Russia and Eastern Europe, manufacturing a wide range of chemical outputs including liquefied hydrocarbons, benzene, phenol, and acetone.

Additionally, according to the company’s website, the facility includes a production unit for para-tert-butylphenol (PTBPF), which has no analogues in Russia or the CIS countries, as well as the country’s only synthetic ethanol production unit, while it has previously been described in Ukraine as one of the leading enterprises in Russia producing components used for explosives.

By Jeyhun Aghazada