A Ukrainian drone strike has killed at least 13 people and injured 75 others in the city of Nizhnekamsk in Russia’s remote Tatarstan region, local authorities said Monday. This was the worst attack to hit the country in more than two years.
Nizhnekamsk is located more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of Moscow and is home to the major, technologically advanced Taneko refinery that the Ukrainian military has announced it is targeting.
Video circulating on social media and geolocated by CNN shows a large fire raging and smoke billowing from an area on the outskirts of the city near what appears to be the refinery’s distinctive towers. It is not clear exactly what was attacked during the attack.
The airstrike comes as Russia and Ukraine have stepped up airstrikes against each other, while the war front has largely come to a standstill. More drones and missiles are slipping past both countries’ weak air defenses, meaning more civilian deaths and more critical infrastructure being damaged. July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022. The United Nations recently announced that 1,396 people were killed and 7,978 injured in the first six months of this year, an increase from 2024 and 2025.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said children were among the dead in Nizhnekamsk, and regional news outlets said 21 people were hospitalized. Four more people have also died in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, which borders Ukraine, in the past 24 hours, the region’s acting governor, Alexander Shubayev, announced on Monday.
As Ukraine’s long-range drone technology has improved in recent months, it has demonstrated a new ability to frequently attack infrastructure deep in Russia, including refineries, tankers, substations, broader energy infrastructure, and even the warehouses of Wildberry, Russia’s largest online retailer.
Last month’s attack on the Wild Berry warehouse killed at least eight people in one day and was the deadliest Ukrainian attack on Russian soil until Monday’s attack in Nizhnekamsk.
Russia’s daily airstrikes against Ukraine continue to significantly exceed Kiev’s retaliatory attacks. In just one night earlier this month, Russian missiles killed at least 17 people and injured dozens in the Kiev region.
Such attacks have become even more deadly as Kiev desperately seeks allied help to replenish its supply of U.S.-made Patriot interceptor missiles.
Fix:
This article has been updated to correct that the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since 2022 is July, not June, and that the figure of 1,396 deaths refers to the first six months of this year.
