PICTURED: Russian Emergency Situation ministry’s firefighters work at the scene of a fire at the Novoshakhtinsk oil processing plant in the Rostov region. PC: Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service.

ROSTOV, Russia. June 22nd, 2022. A pair of drones that appeared to approach the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region from the direction of the border with Ukraine, slammed into sections of the refinery causing a fire and damages.

One drone struck a crude distillation area, at 8:43 a.m. causing a blast and a ball of fire, while a second came 40 minutes later and crashed into the crude reserves. The plant reported that no one was injured, but staff were evacuated.

This was reported by al Jazeera who couldn’t verify the source video, which they didn’t share on their website. Russia’s oil ministry said the attack did not disrupt oil or diesel supplies to southern Russia.

“As a result of terrorist actions from the Western border of the Rostov region, two unmanned aerial vehicles struck at the technological facilities of Novoshakhtinsk,” the plant said. The plant sits around 50 miles from the border with Ukraine.

So far, the U.S. have delivered more than 300 AeroVironment Switchblade drones to the Ukrainian military, which are sometimes called “kamikaze drones” for obvious reasons. They along with the UK and Germany have sent in other weapons such as 155mm howitzers and Multiple Launch Missile Systems.

Russia has warned of consequences for these countries if their weapons are used to strike targets inside Russia.

Lost and found

As soon as Russia announced their special military operation, NATO began flooding Ukraine with weaponry, which WaL predicted would immediately be lost in the fog of war.

In April, CNN spoke with a pair of intelligence officials who described their deliveries of switchblade drones and other munitions as falling “into a black hole”.

“We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero,” said one source briefed on US intelligence. “It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time”.

Another official admitted the weapons may end up in “unexpected places,” and the Defense Department doesn’t earmark the weapons it sends for particular units, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.

There has been a series of attacks along the Russian side of the Ukrainian border, mostly at oil facilities.

Shortly after the CNN report, a fire broke out under unknown circumstances at an oil storage facility in the city of Bryansk, 154km (96 miles) northeast of the border with Ukraine.

Russian officials haven’t clarified what “consequences” might be. So far there have been attacks on western depots receiving NATO munitions, and Russian energy officials have heavily reduced natural gas exports to Europe, without offering explanations.

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