After this week's devasting Ukrainian drone attacks on a Moscow refinery which sent massive plumes of black smoke across the capital city skyline, it has become obvious that the Zelensky's government believes its last major card to play is escalation of its UAV attacks deep inside Russian territory.

This is once again on display as on Saturday Ukraine launched a drone attack targeting an oil refinery in Russia's Tyumen region for the first time since the the war. Significantly, Tyumen region is located some 2,000 kilometers (or 1,240 miles) from the front line in Ukraine.

Regional Governor Alexander Moor confirmed this first such attack on this region since the war's start. Moor claimed that Russian air defenses successfully defended against the attack on the the Tyumen oil refinery, one of Russia's largest. "An attack by unmanned aerial vehicles on the Tyumen refinery has been repelled. Emergency services specialists are working at the site where debris fell," he stated. "According to preliminary information, the plant was not damaged and employees have been evacuated," Moor announced on Telegram.

However, unverified but widely circulating footage and photographs suggest otherwise...

Reuters, reporting on the attack, writes that "The Tyumen refinery, one of the country's ​most modern ​and ⁠complex, has a nominal capacity of around 8 million ​metric tons per year."

"It ​processes ⁠roughly 6 million tons of crude annually, producing about 0.5 million ⁠tons ​of gasoline and 2.5 ​million tons of diesel, according to industry estimates," the report also notes.

Ukrainian media, and some Russian Telegram channels are asserting that the refinery did suffer a hit:

"Thick smoke is visible above the Tyumen Oil Refinery - the former Antipinsky Oil Refinery - in Tyumen," reports the ASTRA Telegram channel, citing its analysis data, adding: "Earlier, the governor reported repelling a UAV attack on this plant and the absence of damage to the enterprise."

The fact that "thick smoke is visible above the Tyumen Oil Refinery in Tyumen," as stated, was established by an ASTRA OSINT analyst from a witness video.

"At the same time, local residents reported hearing at least two explosions in the Antipino microdistrict, where the Tyumen Oil Refinery is located, and also saw at least 10 fire trucks heading towards the plant," ASTRA points out.

This past Thursday saw what many are calling most brazen offensive of the war to date, after 200 Ukrainian suicide drones swarmed Gazprom's Moscow Refinery, inflicting heavy damage.

But rather than back down in the face of Moscow's new threats of "massive group strikes" on Ukraine, it seems Ukrainian forces are flexing with yet more attacks on Western Siberia. 

The Kremlin has long believed that Ukraine can't accomplish such sophisticated long-distance strikes on its own, but that it has had significant targeting help from US and Western allied intelligence.