Russia Blows Up Their Own Oil Refinery In Moscow

An errant Russian defense missile mistakenly struck a major oil refinery in Moscow on Thursday, sending the site’s massive roof hurtling in the air like a flying saucer, jaw-dropping footage shows.
By Ed Scarce — June 21, 2026

A massive drone attack by Ukraine on Moscow on Thursday was thought to have caused massive damage to an oil refinery in Moscow. New footage now reveals it was a surface-to-air missile by the Russians themselves that caused the catastrophic damage. Given the small trail and low altitude, it was likely from a MANPADS, portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles.

Source: New York Post

An errant Russian defense missile mistakenly struck a major oil refinery in Moscow on Thursday, sending the site’s massive roof hurtling in the air like a flying saucer, jaw-dropping footage shows.

Video captured the Russian surface-to-air missile — meant to take out an overhead Ukrainian drone — miss and fly directly into the refinery’s storage tank, causing a powerful blast that launched the tank’s circular roof into the sky in a mushroom cloud before it crashed to the ground.

The refinery, one of Russia’s biggest, had already been battling flames and emitting thick, black smoke from a Ukraine onslaught when the missile hit, according to the clip posted on Telegram by Yan Matveev, a self-exiled Russian military analyst.

The facility provides more than a third of the fuel used around the Moscow region and had previously been attacked Tuesday.

The video.

The iconic picture.

And as always, the Ukrainians were quick to meme.

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