Oil prices rose around 2% Wednesday after production disruptions at several major oil refineries in Russia, following Ukrainian drone attacks.
Two primary oil refining units were shut down in Rosneft's biggest oil refinery in Ryazan on Wednesday after a fire caused by a drone attack, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. Rosneft has not commented on the incident.
Meanwhile, operations at the Novoshakhtinsky oil products plant in the Rostov region were stopped after drones shot down by Russian air defenses fell on the facility, regional Governor Vasily Golubev said. Production was halted at another major refinery — Lukoil's NORSI facility in the Nizhny Novgorod region —on Tuesday after a drone attack caused a fire.
A Ukrainian security source told NBC that the refineries, among the top five largest plants in Russia, were targeted in a bid to damage Russia's oil-exporting economy.
In other news, Putin said Russia is technically ready for a nuclear war — and would be ready to conduct nuclear tests if the U.S. did so.
"From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready ... [and] constantly in a state of combat readiness," Putin said in an interview with news channel Rossiya-1 and news agency RIA Novosti Tuesday.