by Lachlan Hyatt
September 7, 2026
The Kyiv Independent
A Russian servicemember defected and destroyed a communications tower deep behind Russian lines, allowing Ukrainian forces to strike one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, the Atesh group claimed on Sept. 5.
The pro-Ukrainian saboteur reportedly contacted the Atesh group, a partisan force operating behind Russian lines, and burned through wiring in a communications tower around the Russian city of Perm, roughly 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Ukraine, in August.
The Russian service member joined the Ukrainian resistance group due to his “disagreement with the country’s leadership and the lawlessness he witnessed in the army,” the Atesh group claimed on Telegram.
The loss of the tower reportedly disrupted data transmission in the area, leaving security personnel and Russian military units unable to maintain reliable coordination. Ukrainian drones then struck the nearby LUKOIL-Permnefteorgsintez on Aug. 21. Operations at the refinery were temporarily suspended following the strikes.
The Kyiv Independent cannot verify the claims made by Atesh.
Owned by Lukoil, one of Russia’s largest oil producers, the Permnefteorgsintez refinery is among the country’s largest. The facility processes more than 13 million metric tons of crude oil annually and produces gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and lubricating oils.
Ukrainian forces had previously struck the Lukoil-Permnefteorgsintez oil refinery on July 29 as part of Ukraine’s broader missile and drone campaign against Russian energy and oil infrastructure far from Ukraine.
The Atesh partisan group regularly sabotages Russian military infrastructure in Ukraine’s occupied territories and in Russia. The group claimed credit for the sabotage of an electric substation powering a military plant in southern Russia on June 20. Members of Atesh allegedly sabotaged an electric locomotive used by the Russian military in Russia’s Lipetsk Oblast on May 10.
The group is also active in Russian-occupied Crimea, where it has reported an increase both in people wishing to join and in those willing to pass on important information about Russia’s military facilities and weapons.
Lachlan Hyatt is an eager, tenacious journalist passionate about reporting on conflict, humanitarian crises, and injustice. I have a special interests in eastern European affairs where I have reported and filmed a documentary in Ukraine in 2023. Combining my love for storytelling and ambition to make positive impacts, I found my calling in investigative and video journalism. Growing up in the forests of Colorado, stories and storytelling played an important role in my upbringing. Playing in the mountains with my brother, stories channeled our curiosity and served as a way to make sense of the world around us.
Going to NYU where I made my own major at the Gallatin School of Individualized Studies, I was able to combine my love of stories with my desire to make a difference through journalism. My course of study (How the Internet can be Used as a Storytelling Technology to Affect Social Change) focussed around print journalism, multimedia journalism, political theory, internet studies, and social activism. At NYU, I spent a semester abroad in Prague where I took classes about foreign reporting and snagged a foreign correspondence internship at Transitions Online.