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Strikes on Kyiv and Russian oil sites
Summary
A look back at the exchange of long-range attacks reported between 23 and 24 May 2026, as the war's pressure fell on both capitals' infrastructure.
What did the weekend of long-range strikes look like as 25 May 2026 began? The preceding two days had brought attacks in both directions.
On 24 May, a Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv killed four people and injured more than a hundred. Several buildings were damaged, among them the National Chernobyl Museum, which was severely hit.
Ukraine, for its part, struck Russian oil infrastructure. On 23 May, a Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at a Transneft oil terminal in Novorossiysk, in Krasnodar Krai. The following day, the Ukrainian Security Service reported a successful overnight drone strike on the Vtorovo oil pumping station in Russia's Vladimir Oblast.
Two patterns of targeting
The strikes fell on different kinds of targets. In Kyiv, the toll was civilian: dead and wounded residents and damaged buildings, including a museum. The Ukrainian strikes named in the reports hit oil facilities, a terminal and a pumping station, run in Russia's pipeline system by Transneft in at least the Novorossiysk case.
The locations show the reach of the drones involved: Novorossiysk lies in the south of Russia, while Vladimir Oblast is a region east of Moscow. The Security Service described the Vtorovo strike as successful.
The sequence of 23 and 24 May shows the war continuing at range, with Kyiv absorbing a heavy attack while Ukrainian drones reached energy sites in Russia on consecutive days.
