Ukrainian special forces struck two major Russian natural gas processing plants in northwestern Siberia in a long-range drone attack today, Ukrainian military officials announced.
The deep-penetration strikes targeted vital energy infrastructure in the city of Novi Urengoy and the adjacent Purovsky district, located roughly 3,000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the strikes, stating that the long-range operations hit the Russian economy directly.
Both targeted facilities sit within the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, an arctic and subarctic territory in northern Russia that functions as the central hub of the nation's natural gas extraction and refining capacity. Novi Urengoy was established in the 1970s following the discovery of the massive Urengoy natural gas field, which remains one of the largest gas deposits on Earth.
Targeting Siberian Gas Infrastructure
In a message posted on Telegram, Ukrainian special forces confirmed that the operation marked their deepest strike into Russian territory since the beginning of the war. They reported that their unmanned aerial vehicles targeted two giants of the Russian gas processing industry after flying over 3,000 kilometers.
Ukrainian military officials noted that until today, Russia had regarded the remote Siberian gas basin as a completely secure rear zone far beyond the reach of Ukrainian weapons. Responsibility for orchestrating the strike in the Urals region was claimed by the group Fire Point, which has operated as one of the primary architects behind Ukraine's deep inland drone campaigns.
Analyzing the flight path, Serhiy Sternenko, a blogger and former adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, stated that by traversing a 3,000-kilometer trajectory from the Ukrainian border, the drone established a new distance record for Ukrainian strike operations.
Fire and Damage in Novi Urengoy
Russian authorities acknowledged that an enemy unmanned aerial vehicle had struck a site 3,000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, describing the operation as a rare long-range strike that ignited a fire at an industrial facility in the Urals region.
Dmitry Artyukhov, the governor of the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous territory, stated that local defense systems repelled a drone attack directed at an industrial facility in Novi Urengoy today. He explained that falling debris from the intercepted aircraft triggered a fire at the industrial site.
Artyukhov stated that the incident caused no deaths or injuries among facility personnel or local residents. He urged inhabitants of the energy city to remain calm, assuring them that emergency services had the situation fully under control.
Pattern of Distant Aerial Attacks
The attack in northern Siberia comes amid a broader escalation, as both Ukraine and Russia have intensified long-range strikes over recent weeks aimed at industrial facilities, military bases, and critical supply chain infrastructure.
The strike on Yamalo-Nenets is part of an expanding Ukrainian campaign targeting Russian industrial infrastructure far behind front lines. In late July, Ukrainian forces dispatched long-range drones to strike distant Russian administrative regions, including Bashkortostan and Chuvashia, located hundreds of kilometers east of Moscow in the Volga and Ural regions.
