Yaroslavl

Yaroslavl is a city of around 600,000 in central Russia, roughly 260 km north-east of Moscow on the Volga river. It hosts the Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery, one of Russia's five largest, with a nominal throughput capacity of approximately 300,000 Barrels Per Day (15 million tonnes per year). The refinery processes Urals crude and distributes refined products across central Russia, making it a strategically significant node in Russia's domestic fuel supply chain.

Yaroslavl became a direct casualty location of Ukraine's deep-strike campaign on 28 March 2026, when FP-1 attack drones struck YANOS and fires broke out across at least three sections. A child was killed in the city during that attack, one of the war's first confirmed deep-strike civilian fatalities at this distance inside Russia. Russia subsequently cited the Yaroslavl disruption in its gasoline export ban announced on 1 April 2026. YANOS was struck again in May 2026, this time hitting multiple process units including the primary oil refining unit and the catalytic reforming units; the plant was running at roughly a quarter of its nominal capacity by late May.

Yaroslavl's repeated targeting reflects Ukraine's wider campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. By 20 May 2026 Reuters reported that strikes had halted or reduced operations at nearly all major central Russian refineries, affecting roughly 83 million tonnes per year of capacity (approximately 25% of Russian total refining). Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak publicly acknowledged on 4 June 2026 that drone strikes were cutting Russian oil output, citing the Yaroslavl refinery specifically as a 300kbd capacity loss. From a European oil-markets perspective, the sustained degradation of YANOS and peer refineries tightens Russian refined product exports, contributes to jet-fuel and gasoline export bans, and limits Russia's ability to maintain revenue to fund the war.