Refinery Attacks Intensify, Russian Rhetoric Changes Drastically

April 23, 2026April 23, 2026

Over the past two weeks, refinery attacks intensify — and the enemy media can no longer pretend otherwise. Gone are the poetic references to “precision debris”. Instead, there’s open anxiety about a trend that keeps growing and shows no sign of stopping.

As of Wednesday morning, the Tuapse refinery was still burning — and when the wind shifted, the smoke rolled deep into Stavropol Krai, making sure the locals got the memo too. The cheerful press releases about “emergency vehicles dispatched to the debris impact site, no casualties reported” have stopped working even in Moscow. Everyone there knows exactly what hit, what’s destroyed, and whether it can be fixed — and if so, when, and at what cost.

The refinery owners, however, seem skeptical about investing in repairs. Ukraine’s Defense Forces have a signature move for this — the military double-tap doctrine: hit the same target again before it recovers. Yesterday, Good Birds¹ paid another visit to the Syzran refinery, once again proving the obvious: rebuilding without a guarantee that the drones won’t come back is just burning money.

The Math Is Getting Uncomfortable

Count the Good Birds arriving almost daily to deliver “warmth and light” to the Rabid Federation — and the pattern becomes impossible to ignore. The number of enemy targets hit keeps growing. The Tuapse refinery is still burning, and that likely means it is not just light petroleum products like gasoline going up in flames — heavier fractions like fuel oil are burning too. And by morning, enemy media were already reporting that overnight, the same kind of good news happened in three additional regions simultaneously. Here’s how their outlets framed it:

Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked several fuel and energy facilities across Russia on the night of April 23. In Novokuybyshevsk, Samara Oblast, drones struck the Novokuybyshevsk Petrochemical Plant — owned by Rosneft — where fire broke out, as seen in footage from eyewitnesses. Ukraine had previously stated this facility is one of Russia’s leading producers of explosive components, including synthetic ethanol and para-tert-butylphenol (PTBF).

Ukrainian drones also struck the Gorky oil pumping station in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. Residents of Kstovo reported explosions powerful enough to rattle windows, followed by a massive column of black smoke rising above the facility. The Gorky station is part of Transneft-Verkhnyaya Volga’s trunk pipeline system and is one of the largest oil transit nodes in the region. Additionally, Ukrainian drones struck a fuel depot in Feodosia.

The Feodosia depot had barely cooled from its previous fire when it got hit again — for at least the fifth time — producing a smoke column that looked like Tuapse’s younger sibling. At this point, the depot has lost most of its original burning capacity, since a large portion of the tank farm already burned out in earlier strikes. Yet a few tanks apparently remained, otherwise Ukraine’s Defense Forces wouldn’t have spent drones on Feodosia.

Governors, Bloggers, and One Communist Who Said Too Much

As refinery attacks intensify, the rhetoric is shifting — not just among propagandists, but among officials too. Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov called for a halt to strikes on Ukraine back in winter, “until air defense issues are resolved”. The Kremlin called him a traitor but did nothing urgent. Later, Bryansk Oblast head Alexander Bogomaz joined the same chorus.

Now there are unconfirmed reports that Krasnodar Krai governor Veniamin Kondratyev, Tatarstan head Rustam Minnikhanov, and the Gauleiters of Russian-occupied territories — Sergei Aksyonov, Yevgeny Balitsky, Denis Pushilin, and Leonid Pasichnyk — may join the appeal as well.

Then there are the Z-bloggers — the most enthusiastic SVO² cheerleaders, some with enormous audiences. They’re now openly writing that the country hasn’t just been heading somewhere bad — it’s already there. And they know how to land a message. They don’t editorialize. They just list the things they’re being silenced for: frontline losses, rising prices and taxes, livestock slaughter, and so on. As a precaution, they’re publicly announcing to their audiences that they have no intention of dying by suicide, that they don’t carry unregistered weapons or drugs — so if anything like that happens to them, nobody should doubt it’s punishment for “telling the terrifying truth.”

Rats in a Cage

But the most telling moment came yesterday in the State Duma. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov stood at the podium and announced he had intelligence suggesting a repeat of 1917 could happen by autumn — hinting directly at a violent overthrow. He said this publicly, from the Duma floor. Then, in closed session, he told deputies that this intelligence came from security services that can’t get through to the Kremlin — and that they chose this channel to warn everyone: pogroms and street fighting are coming.

The response from the FSB-linked Telegram channel “Kontorskaya Tabakерka” was telling. They didn’t deny Zyuganov’s words. Instead, they confirmed the leak and promised to “deal with Zyuganov” for disclosing classified information. Here’s their exact statement:

Zyuganov is gearing up for elections and making loud statements. Someone fed him information that the security services hold. They consider it plausible that an attempt to trigger a revolution could happen in Russia this autumn — more precisely, a violent coup, with bloodshed, street fighting in moscow and other cities. It could be organized by internal enemies exploiting public discontent over the economic situation, possible mobilization, and other factors. I’m confident the security services will prevent this scenario. But as for Zyuganov — who just leaked classified information — we’ll be dealing with him.

So here is the pattern. The more refinery attacks intensify, the sharper the shift in Orc rhetoric. Officials, propagandists, top bloggers — all increasingly saying things that would have been unimaginable just a year ago.

¹Good Birds – slang for strike drones. Why “good”? Because they bring “warmth and light” to enemy military factories, ammunition depots, and oil refineries. Sarcastic? Of course. Effective? Even more so.

²SVO – abbreviation of “Spetsialnaya Voennaya Operatsiya” (“special military operation”). Since 2022, Orcs use this euphemism to describe their full-scale war against Ukraine.