MOSCOW — Fourteen schools and 25 kindergartens in Ryazan stayed shut on Thursday after a fire broke out at the city’s oil refinery, following what the Russian Defence Ministry describes as a Ukrainian attack of four Flamingo missiles and 69 drones.
The ministry said the attack ran between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m., that air defences and military aircraft destroyed all four cruise missiles and all 69 fixed-wing drones, and that the fire began when debris from a downed drone fell on the refinery grounds, according to RT. Governor Pavel Malkov wrote on Telegram that preliminary information showed no casualties, that a warehouse and several vehicles belonging to another company in the city were damaged, and that emergency services were working at the scene. Classes and kindergartens were cancelled in the Oktyabrsky district and part of the Sovetsky district.
The timing is the point. Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published the same day that Ukraine had held off on strikes against Russian refineries for three days at Washington’s request while Russia kept hitting Ukrainian energy sites, and that it was now resuming them, according to Meduza’s account of the interview. Meduza described the Ryazan fire as the apparent first strike since that pause. It came days after President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire, whose terms and Russian acceptance TEH reported as unconfirmed.
Moscow disputes that any pause took place. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that “there was no moratorium on the part of Ukraine,” and that attacks on refineries and energy facilities had continued throughout. A day earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters at the Russian Energy Week forum that Ukrainian drones had attacked two oil refineries that day, in the Saratov and Ryazan regions, TASS reported. On Moscow’s account, the Ryazan hit was the second in two days, not the first after a truce.
The official versions do not match in every detail. The ministry attributes the fire to falling debris. Malkov, Meduza reported, said Ukrainian drones hit the refinery and started the fire. The previous evening he had counted 23 drones shot down over the region in 24 hours, with no casualties or damage, which makes the overnight attack a sharp step up for Ryazan. The 69 drones and four missiles are the ministry’s own count, and TEH could not verify them independently.
Washington has been leaning on Kyiv over exactly these strikes. Zelensky has said the Trump administration warned it could cut off intelligence sharing if the refinery campaign continued, a claim TEH covered as the intelligence cutoff warning, and in the interview he said he could accept another halt in exchange for more Patriot interceptors. The ceasefire idea itself is not new: Trump claimed in September that both sides had agreed to halt energy strikes, and Kyiv said it had not been told of any deal.
Ukraine has said less about Ryazan itself. The Zelensky remarks TEH read did not name the refinery, and no General Staff claim for the strike had surfaced by Friday. The plant’s owner, Rosneft, had said nothing that TEH could find. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv has said which units burned or how long the fire lasted, or whether the refinery is still taking in crude. And no one has yet said what, in writing, a ceasefire on energy sites would have covered, which leaves each side free to say the other broke it.
