Ukrainian drones reached deep into Russian territory again overnight: a fuel depot caught fire a hundred metres from Sochi's airport, while a petrochemical plant feeding Russia's military industry burned in Sterlitamak, more than 1,300 km from Ukraine.
Ukraine's long-range drones reached targets deep inside Russia again overnight. Volunteers Support Ukraine tracks stories like this every day, because strikes like these are exactly what gradually undercuts Russia's ability to keep supplying its own army. This time two targets far apart from each other were hit in the same night — the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, and the industrial city of Sterlitamak in Bashkortostan.
Overnight into September 4, in Sochi's Adler district, a fire broke out at the "Rosneft-Kuban Oil Products" fuel depot — located only about a hundred metres from Sochi International Airport, according to local reports. Sochi mayor Andrey Proshunin confirmed the fire at the depot and said there were no casualties. Open-source reports also pointed to a Russian air-defense unit near Sochi being hit the same night. Explosions were heard across the city for hours, and an air-raid alert was declared shortly after midnight over the threat of drones.
The second target hit that night was the industrial zone of Sterlitamak in Bashkortostan — more than 1,300 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. According to Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation, the strike targeted one of Russia's chemical and petrochemical facilities. The Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant produces synthetic rubber and ionol, an additive used in aviation fuel and lubricants for military equipment. Bashkortostan's regional head, Radii Khabirov, confirmed a drone attack on the industrial zone that started a fire on the plant's territory. Preliminary reports say five workers were in the workshop at the time and none were hurt; staff were later evacuated.
This is not the first strike on the Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant — similar attacks on the same industrial zone were reported in November 2025, again in April, and once more in late August 2026. It underlines just how systematically Ukrainian forces keep trying to limit the Russian military-industrial complex's access to fuel and equipment components, despite the huge distance from the front line.
Strikes this far from the front line are, first and foremost, news about the war rather than about humanitarian aid. But Volunteers Support Ukraine keeps an eye on this side of the story every day too, because every report of the enemy's capacity being worn down is one more step toward the war's end — after which help for the people it has affected will still be needed for a long time.
