An underground network of Russians claims to have assisted Ukraine in striking nine refineries. Nearly all information about this group originates from a single individual: a former Gazprom executive.
The BBC Russian Service interviewed Igor Volobuev, a former senior executive at Gazprom and Gazprombank who is now fighting for Ukraine. Volobuev, who was born in Ukraine, spent over three decades in Russia before returning to his home country at the onset of the full-scale invasion. He previously managed public relations and press outreach for Gazprom companies and currently serves as a drone operator in the Ukrainian army. Since May 2026, he has also been the public face of Chernaya Iskra, or Black Spark, an alleged underground movement operating within Russia that provides information to Ukraine for strikes on oil facilities. Meduza has reviewed Volobuev's statements about Black Spark and other known details about the movement.
What Volobuev told the BBC about Black Spark
Volobuev stated that Black Spark independently approached the Ukrainian military and offered its assistance. After vetting the group's members and confirming their identities, the Ukrainian defense forces began collaborating with them. The group identifies critical and vulnerable sections of Russian oil refineries and relays this information to the Ukrainian military. Since September 2025, Ukraine, with the group's help, has struck nine refineries across Russia, including the Omsk refinery, which has the largest crude processing volume in the country.
"Why were these guys — the partisans — needed at all? They can infiltrate, and they can tell you that this particular [refinery] unit, say, has been hit and needs to be finished off in such and such a way, in such and such a place," Volobuev explained.
"Why is the word 'black' in [the movement's] name at all? Because they believe that one of their main tasks is to strike Russia's oil industry, the 'lifeblood' of Putin's regime," he added.
Volobuev emphasized that Black Spark operates autonomously and is not directed by the Ukrainian military. He also mentioned that the group engages in its own operations beyond assisting Ukrainian forces with refinery strikes. The movement was organized by a group of like-minded individuals who identify as middle-class, and all its members are Russian citizens still residing in Russia. Volobuev indicated that their numbers are sufficient to operate "in almost any region of Russia."
Black Spark approached Volobuev to serve as their public representative, believing they shared "basic common values." He later discovered he had personal connections with some group members from his time in Russia, which helped establish a "certain level of trust." A face-to-face meeting with key figures from the underground, held outside both Ukraine and Russia, further solidified this trust.
"I won't hide it: they really did want someone who already had a certain level of recognition and reputation to speak on their behalf, so that people would trust them. Because many people don't believe such organizations exist. And that's why they needed someone who would put his reputation on the line and answer for it with his name," he stated.
What he has said about the movement before
Volobuev first publicly identified himself as Black Spark's spokesperson in May 2026. Subsequently, he began giving interviews to various outlets about Black Spark's nature, its leadership, objectives, and achievements.
- Ukraine was not involved in the creation of Black Spark and does not control the underground group. While its members cooperate with the Ukrainian military, they also conduct independent sabotage operations within Russia, including arson attacks on locomotives and explosions of gas pipelines.
- Black Spark is exclusively composed of Russians. Its members include the middle-class individuals who founded the group, people with Ukrainian heritage, individuals with prior combat experience, and businesspeople who provide financial support. Volobuev reportedly assists the movement without compensation.
- Black Spark seeks publicity to attract new members. Volobuev explains that this is why the underground organization has started to publicize its existence: "They want to have their own representatives in every region of Russia. Without a public profile, that's practically impossible."
- Volobuev serves as a guarantor of Black Spark's credibility. "I am the proof. If I've vouched for [Black] Spark, that means everything there is clean. [...] This isn't an FSB project. [...] I've put my name on the line. If something happens, I'll be the one who answers for it. I'm already in this up to my neck. I wouldn't have done this if I weren't confident that this is a real force against Putin," he told the independent Russian outlet Republic.
What else is known about Black Spark
The Russian-language outlet Vot Tak reported that Black Spark first gained public attention through a post by Ukraine's Special Operations Forces on September 7, 2025. The post detailed a strike on the crude distillation complex at the Ilsky refinery, attributed to a Black Spark cell in the Krasnodar region. The headline referenced a line from a Decembrist poem, which Lenin adopted as the motto for his revolutionary newspaper, Iskra.
In the subsequent weeks and months, Ukraine's Special Operations Forces mentioned Black Spark in reports concerning strikes against other refineries, a Buk-M3 surface-to-air missile system, a Nebo-U radar station, and Russian ships in the Caspian Sea, among other operations. Between September 2025 and August 2026, Ukraine's Special Operations Forces mentioned the group on its Telegram channel 16 times.
Black Spark launched its own Telegram channel in November 2025, two months after its initial mention by the Ukrainian military. Since then, the movement has expanded its presence to include a website, YouTube and TikTok accounts, and has produced an anthem and a manifesto. The manifesto states: "We are the true elite who spent years trying to change Russia’s regime through peaceful means. Putin’s terror killed our faith in dialogue. We realized that under a dictatorship, justice has no choice but to carry ‘Molotov cocktails.’"
Currently, all information regarding Black Spark's existence and operations is derived from Volobuev's accounts, statements from the Ukrainian military, and the movement's social media posts, which consist of videos of Volobuev or generic content in the style of other pro-Ukrainian war-focused Telegram channels.
On social media, Black Spark has claimed responsibility for sabotage incidents that Volobuev has also described. In recent months, the movement has asserted on Telegram that it was responsible for blowing up the Belousovo-Leningrad and Konnaya Lakhta gas pipelines near St. Petersburg, as well as a pipeline supplying the Nizhnekamskneftekhim petrochemical plant in Tatarstan. Meduza has been unable to independently verify these claims through open sources.
Based on the media attention it has garnered, Black Spark could be a genuine underground network or a deceptive operation aimed at recruiting potential saboteurs within Russia.
Sources within the Ukrainian General Staff confirmed to the BBC that Black Spark is a real entity and collaborates with the Ukrainian side, but they declined to provide further details.
