Steam rises from the chimneys of a thermal power plant and an oil refinery in Omsk, Russia, in October 2024. Alexey Malgavko/Reuters

Almost 900 miles from Ukraine’s borders, a fire erupted at a Russian oil refinery on Saturday. The blaze – a result of a strike by Ukrainian long-range drones, according to sources in the country’s security services – was the third at the facility in the last month alone.

It was just the latest episode in an intensifying energy war between Ukraine and Russia.

Video from the area around the Ufa refinery in Bashkortostan, a Russian region in the southern Ural Mountains, showed a column of dark smoke rising from the plant following the attack. The refinery is one of the country’s largest.

This was at least the fourth Ukrainian attack on Russian oil fac

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