New record set: Ukrainian drones strike Russian gas facility over 3,000 km away in Siberia
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Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SSO) carried out Kyiv's deepest strike into Russia so far in the full-scale war, attacking a natural gas facility 3,200 kilometers (1,988 miles) from the Ukrainian border on Sept. 9, the military said.
Ukraine's General Staff announced a successful strike on the Novy Urengoy Gas Condensate Treatment Plant (GCTP) in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Novy Urengoy is located in northwestern Siberia, over 3,000 kilometers from Ukraine's border. The attack marks the first time Ukrainian forces have struck Russia's Yamalo-Nenets region.
"Until today, this area was considered completely safe territory for the aggressor," the SSO wrote on Telegram.
The GCTP facility processes 19.5 million tons of crude oil and natural gas annually and produces diesel fuel and other petroleum products for Russia's military. The record-breaking strike also targeted the nearby Purovsky Gas Condensate Processing Plant.
Ukrainian weapons manufacturer Fire Point, producer of the Flamingo missile, said that its FP-1 drone model was used to carry out the strike.
Fires and smoke billowing from the plant were visible in footage shot by residents of Novy Urengoy. Monitoring channel Exilenova-Plus posted footage of the facility releasing excess gas through flare stacks to prevent explosions.
The attack was confirmed by Dmitry Artyukhov, governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
The latest strikes demonstrate how Ukraine has increasingly extended the range of its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a campaign against Russia's oil infrastructure.
In one of its previous farthest-reaching strikes, Ukrainian forces struck an oil refinery in Omsk, nearly 2,500 kilometers (around 1,550 miles) from Ukraine's border, the General Staff said on July 6. Ukrainian long-range drones also recently targeted oil refineries in Russia's Perm Oblast, located more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Ukraine, on Sept. 7.
Emphasizing Ukraine's success with long-range UAVs, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned airlines, insurers, and foreign governments that Russian airspace "will be de facto closed" because of Ukrainian drone strikes.
