Ukraine Strikes Strategic Russian Bomber Base: Ukraine continues its long-range strike campaign against Russia, launching new strikes well beyond the front lines overnight into August 2. The strikes saw a major oil refinery and a strategic bomber base hit by Ukrainian drones and missiles, as well as a military fuel depot and a drone support facility.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Sunday, Aug. 2, that Ukrainian forces successfully struck the Saratov Oil Refinery and Engels Air Base in Russia’s Saratov region, with fires reported at both sites. Additional strikes targeted the Lyudinovskaya oil depot in Russia’s Kaluga region and a facility used to store, prepare, and launch strike drones near Navlya in the Bryansk region.
Tu-22M3 from Russian Air Force. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Tu-22M3 Bomber Russian Air Force. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
“On the night of August 2, 2026, as part of reducing the military-economic potential of the Russian aggressor, units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine damaged the Saratov Oil Refinery in Saratov (Saratov Region, Russia),” Ukraine’s General Staff said in a Telegram statement.
Engels Air Base Targeted
Among the most significant overnight targets was Engels Air Base – one of Russia’s most important aviation facilities and a site that Ukraine has hit before.
Located across the Volga River from Saratov, the base is a main operating location for the Tu-95MS Bear and the Tu-160 Blackjack, both strategic Russian bombers that routinely launch long-range cruise missile strikes against Ukrainian targets.
Although Russia dispersed many of its strategic bombers following Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb in June 2025, Engels still plays a critical role in servicing and preparing aircraft before missions.
The air base has been a target for Ukraine since the early days of the conflict.
Oil Refinery Hit
The other major target of the overnight Ukrainian strikes was the Saratov Oil Refinery, one of the largest refining facilities in Russia’s Volga region and a critical supplier of fuel to the Russian military and, more generally, the defense industry.
The refinery has an annual processing capacity of approximately seven million metric tons, and Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed that the overnight strike caused a fire. The full extent of the damage is still being assessed.
Video footage shared on social media that appears to show the aftermath of the strikes suggests that the refinery’s ELOU-AVT-6 primary crude processing unit may have been hit. This section of the refinery is responsible for the initial atmospheric and vacuum distillation of crude oil, making it one of the most important parts of the refinery’s production chain.
Damage to this unit can significantly reduce refining capacity, even if storage tanks and other infrastructure remain intact, because without it, there is no more throughput.
The Saratov refinery has also become a recurring target for Ukraine, with drones having already hit the facility in May and again in early July.
Military Fuel Depot and Drone Base Struck
Ukraine also said the overnight operation extended beyond Saratov, with the General Staff reporting successful strikes on the Lyudinovskaya oil depot in Russia’s Kaluga region. Another strike also targeted a site near Navlya in Russia’s Bryansk region that Ukraine said was used to store and launch Shahed-type attack drones.
“In addition, the Lyudinovsk oil depot in Lyudinov (Kaluga region, Russia) was hit. The oil depot is used for the storage and supply of fuel and lubricants, in particular to meet the needs of the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” the General Staff said.
Zelenskyy Praises Forces
In his own statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the Ukrainian Defense Forces for expanding Ukraine’s long-range capabilities and “delivering precise results.”
“We continue applying our long-range sanctions against Russian facilities that serve the war effort and finance the aggression. Last night, in Russia’s Saratov, more than 600 kilometers from the front line, two strategic facilities were hit: the Saratov Oil Refinery and the Engels military air base,” he said in the statement.
“In the Kaluga region, the tank farm of the Lyudinovskaya oil depot was hit. In the Bryansk region, our warriors also carried out a precise strike on a site used to store, prepare, and launch attack drones,” he added.
Engels Under Repeated Attack
Engels was first targeted by Ukraine on December 5, 2022, when drones struck the air base in what was the deepest confirmed Ukrainian strike inside Russian territory at the time. The strikes reportedly damaged two Tu-95MS strategic bombers, while a simultaneous strike on Dyagilevo Air Base in the Ryazan region of Russia also damaged a Tu-22M3 bomber and exposed significant weaknesses in Russian air defenses. The strikes were monumental at the time, with both bases being hundreds of miles away from the Ukrainian border and previously considered beyond Kyiv’s reach.
They were also more than just symbolic, too, because throughout late 2022, Tu-95MS bombers operating from Engels had repeatedly launched Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles against the Ukrainian power grid and civilian infrastructure.
Tu-95 Bear Bomber. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Ukraine demonstrated that those aircraft and the bases supporting them were no longer safe, forcing Russia to devote more air defenses to its bases and even to begin protecting its aircraft by dispersing part of its long-range bomber fleet to more distant airfields.
About the Author: Jack Buckby
Jack Buckby is a British researcher and analyst specializing in defense and national security, based in New York. His work focuses on military capability, procurement, and strategic competition, producing and editing analysis for policy and defense audiences. He brings extensive editorial experience, with a career output spanning over 1,000 articles at 19FortyFive and National Security Journal, and has previously authored books and papers on extremism and deradicalization.
