Today, in the night of March 3rd, around 02:35 local time (23:35 Kyiv time), an explosion and a significant fire occurred at the "Ufaorgsintez" plant in northern Ufa, Bashkortostan.
As of this morning, local authorities have denied that this was an attack by Ukrainian drones. However, Ukraine has long possessed the capability to target Russian facilities at distances greater than 1350 km from the front line.
This facility is a technological component of "Bashneft-Novoil," a refinery with a designed capacity of over 7 million tons of oil per year. Both enterprises are owned by "Bashneft."
Moreover, the strike on "Ufaorgsintez" is quite logical from the perspective of very precise target selection. This is not just another oil refinery. It's also noteworthy that "Ufaorgsintez" is one of the key enterprises producing about a third of phenol and acetone in Russia, as well as 15% of all high-pressure polyethylene.
The fact is that a significant portion of "Ufaorgsintez" products goes to explosive manufacturers. In particular, according to Russian state contract databases, some of the primary customers of this plant's products include: "Cheboksarskoye Production Association named after V.I. Chapayev," "Biysk Oleum Plant," and "Sverdlov Plant."
The plant in Cheboksary is directly owned by "Rostec," specializing in the production of explosives, rubber products, and plastics. The Biysk plant is a federal state enterprise for the production of explosives and is a subsidiary of the "Sverdlov Plant," which is the largest producer of explosives in Russia.
The known total value of state contracts for "Ufaorgsintez" with these three defense enterprises listed in the databases exceeds $1 billion (94.48 billion rubles). Therefore, it is not surprising that in 2016, "Rostec" was very eager to include "Ufaorgsintez" in its structure, but ultimately it was absorbed by "Bashneft."
It should be noted that this is not the only Russian petrochemical enterprise that supplies raw materials for explosive production that has recently experienced an explosion. In particular, at the end of January, the "Sibur-Kstovo" facility, a major supplier of raw materials for the aforementioned "Sverdlov Plant," was hit by drones, and moreover, it is part of Putin's "common fund".