URALS — Ukraine's Security Service struck a Transneft oil pumping and distribution facility in the city of Perm in the Russian Urals on April 30, 2026, hitting a target roughly 1,600 kilometres from Ukraine's borders. The agency said the site is a strategically important hub of the main oil transportation system, and that preliminary information indicated almost all oil storage tanks at the facility were on fire.

Russia's Ministry of Defence confirmed the Perm strike and said it had downed 98 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles across various regions. President Vladimir Putin dispatched Civil Defence, Emergencies, and Disaster Relief minister Alexander Kurenkov to oversee the response personally. The Russian Defence Ministry also announced that military cadets and a column of equipment would not take part in this year's Victory Day parade commemorating the end of World War II, citing the current operational situation. Russia's presidential envoy to the region, Artem Zhoga, wrote: "The Urals are now within reach, be vigilant."

The Perm strike followed a series of long-range Ukrainian operations against Russian oil and defence infrastructure over the previous week. On April 23, Ukrainian forces damaged three storage tanks at the Gorky oil pumping station in Nizhny Novgorod and struck the Novokuibyshevsk petrochemical plant in Samara. On April 24, they destroyed two production facilities at the Atlant-Aero factory in Taganrog, Rostov, which builds the Molniya drones used to attack Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian forces also struck the Tuapse oil refinery on the Black Sea. The Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine had likely conducted at least 18 strikes against Russian oil infrastructure in April.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced "a new stage in the use of Ukrainian weapons to limit the potential of Russia's war." He said Russian internal documents seen by his foreign intelligence service admitted that Ukraine had deprived oil offloading ports of much of their capacity, with Primorsk on the Baltic Sea losing 13 percent, Ust-Luga losing 43 percent, and the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk losing 38 percent.

"We believe that such internal Russian data may be underestimated," Zelenskyy said. He estimated that the loss of export capacity translated into revenue losses of $2.3 billion in March. Russia lost approximately 40 percent of its export capacity that month, according to an estimate by the news agency Reuters.

Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine devotes 20 percent of its defence resources to new technologies and is developing long-range strike capabilities. On April 23, he said Ukraine had successfully tested remote control technology enabling pilots to operate from Kyiv or Lviv. The drone manufacturer Wild Hornets said an operator had used its remote piloting system to fly a Sting interceptor drone at a distance of 2,000 kilometres.