Ukraine strikes Russia’s only helium plant and largest gas complex 1,200 km from the front
Ukrainian drones struck the Orenburg gas processing plant and the adjacent Orenburg helium plant overnight on 24 June, setting off fires at a complex more than 1,200 kilometers from the line of contact, Ukraine's General Staff confirmed.
The two sites form a single industrial complex whose output runs into Russia's war effort. The gas plant produces sulfur used in explosives and black powder, while the helium plant supplies helium for liquid-fuel rocket engines and guidance systems and ethane used in solid rocket fuel, the General Staff said.
That is the same facility EP reported on in August 2025 as Russia's only helium producer and a fixture of its military-industrial complex — not merely a Gazprom revenue stream.
What was hit
Local residents reported at least three impacts in the plant's industrial zone, according to Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+. Satellite fire-detection data from NASA FIRMS and footage shared by locals recorded several active fires at the site.
Yevgeny Solntsev, governor of Orenburg Oblast, said the region came under a massive drone attack and that air defenses downed several drones over the industrial facility. He reported no casualties. The extent of the damage is still being assessed.
Airports in Orenburg, Orsk, and Yasny suspended flights under Russia's "Kovyor" air-threat protocol. Authorities in the region barred the publication of photos and videos showing drones.
Russia describes the Orenburg plant as the world's largest gas chemical complex, with an annual processing capacity of about 37.5 billion cubic meters of gas. It is Gazprom's only producer of the natural odorant that gives gas its smell, and it processes feedstock from Kazakhstan's Karachaganak field under the KazRosGaz project.
A repeat target deep in the Urals
The complex has now been hit at least four times in under a year. Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) struck the helium plant in August 2025; drones hit the gas plant in October 2025; and in May 2026, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had struck gas-industry targets in Orenburg Oblast.
The strikes fit Ukraine's deep-strike campaign against Russian energy and military-industrial sites, which has triggered fuel shortages across several Russian regions and aims to cut both the revenue and the materiel sustaining Moscow's war on Ukraine.
