Ukraine strikes Russian refineries, Crimea oil depot
Ukrainian drones struck a handful of Russia’s oil facilities overnight, including two oil refineries in the Samara region, an oil depot in Crimea and a Baltic Sea port that exports oil products.
Kiev troops have in recent weeks stepped up attacks on Russian oil depots and refineries, the main sources of revenue for Moscow’s war budget, sometimes targeting areas thousands of kilometers from Ukraine’s borders.
In the Leningrad region surrounding St Petersburg and bordering Finland, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said the fire was extinguished at the Vysotsk port, where a terminal operated by Lukoil is located that exports fuel oil, naphtha, diesel and vacuum kerosene.
Ukrainian forces also attacked oil refineries in the cities of Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in the Samara region, Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app acknowledging the port attack. Both facilities were hit multiple times during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Make Russian Oil Great Again,” he wrote sarcastically.
Brovdi also criticized the US decision to renew an exemption that allows countries to purchase sanctioned Russian oil offshore.
Samara regional governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said industrial targets were attacked. He did not name the facilities.
On the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, the Moscow-backed governor of Sevastopol said that 22 unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down and damage occurred throughout the city, including a fire in a fuel tank. Ukrainian Brovdi said Kiev targeted an oil depot.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said two Russian landing craft and a warship on the peninsula were also hit.
According to Brovdi, recent attacks on Russia’s oil logistics in Primorsk, Ust-Luga, Sheskharis and Tuapse have reduced total daily oil shipments by approximately 880,000 barrels. Reuters could not immediately confirm the figure.
Separately, authorities in the southern Krasnodar region said on Saturday that a fire that had been burning at an oil depot in Tikhoretsk and an oil terminal in the Black Sea port of Tuapse since Thursday had been extinguished.
Officials said both fires were caused by Ukrainian drone strikes.
