On the night of January 24, the Defense Forces of Ukraine delivered an extremely effective strike on several industrial facilities in Ryazan, including an oil refinery, an oil storage facility, and the Novo-Ryazanskaya Thermal Power Plant. All of these sites are located on the southern outskirts of the city. Notably, this was just one group of targets, as reports indicate that a number of objects were hit in other regions as well.
However, due to the damage inflicted on the oil industry facilities in Ryazan, the fire that illuminated the Russian city could not be concealed within the RF. The fact of this effective strike serves as a significant indicator of the current state of the Russian air defense system.
Moreover, considering the number of assets involved in this operation, the true count remains unknown, as the only source of information is Russian media. Nonetheless, the enemy's reported number of Ukrainian drones is quite illustrative. The so-called Russian Ministry of Defense announced the "interception" of a total of 121 Ukrainian drones, of which 20 were supposedly over the Ryazan region. According to local media, 12 drones targeted the Ryazan oil refinery.
This was sufficient for a successful strike on the oil refinery, which has a design capacity of 16-18 million tons per year and ranks 4th or 5th among all Russian refineries in terms of capacity. This facility has already been targeted several times throughout 2024 and even received drone defense in the form of tensioned metal cables.
Additionally, Ryazan is home to the well-known "Dyakilevo" airbase, which houses long-range Tu-22M3 bombers, as well as the 360th Aircraft Repair Plant, specializing in the repair of Tu-22M3, Tu-95MS, and Il-76 aircraft. Therefore, the Russians should have tightly secured this city with air defense systems.
Furthermore, Ukrainian drones would have had to fly over bordering Russian regions, which also have a significant concentration of Russian forces. Even in a straight line, this amounts to about 470 km. Thus, this strike once again demonstrates that it is possible to effectively scale the targeting of even critical facilities within RF territory.