NORSI, Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery and second-largest gasoline producer, suspended operations on Wednesday after a Ukrainian drone attack, a move likely to worsen nationwide fuel shortages, two industry sources said on Thursday.
Ukraine has said its campaign of long-range drone strikes on Russian energy facilities aims to weaken a key source of war funding and bring the conflict closer to home for Russians.
President Vladimir Putin has said such attacks on civilian infrastructure are intended to sow discord among the population.
The sources said the attack damaged a primary refining unit, CDU-5, at NORSI. The unit has capacity of 12,000 metric tons a day, about a quarter of the plant's total production capability.
They added the refinery may use other units to restart operations in the near future.
Lukoil, which owns the refinery, did not reply to a request for comment.
SPIMEX, the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange, halted diesel and gasoline sales from NORSI from Wednesday.
Nizhny Novgorod region Governor Gleb Nikitin said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday that an industrial facility had been damaged by falling drone debris and that two people were killed. He did not name the facility.
The refinery is near Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 450 km (280 miles) east of Moscow.
The plant can process around 15 million tons of crude a year and produce about 5 million tons of gasoline, more than 5 million tons of diesel, 2 million tons of fuel oil and around 500,000 tons of bitumen.
