A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and injured three in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, local officials said on Saturday, as part of Kyiv’s campaign of strikes on military and energy targets deep inside Russia.
Drone debris sparked a fire at a sea terminal, Krasnodar Krai Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said.
He did not give details, but Russian news outlets reported that a Black Sea export terminal transporting terminal crude oil, petroleum products and liquefied gas in the village of Volna was damaged.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts during a news conference in Tallinn on Tuesday. Photo: EPA
Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces did not comment on the strike, but said that its forces had hit an oil preparation and pumping station overnight in Russia’s Volgograd region, as well as Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The attack comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country’s forces had struck several military and energy infrastructure sites deep inside Russia, including a military factory he said supplied components for Russian drones and missiles.
Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo long-range missiles had hit the facility in Cheboksary, in the Chuvashiya region, more than 900km from the front line, he said.
The US-Israeli war with Iran and the resulting global energy disruptions have overshadowed the conflict in Ukraine and pulled much of Washington’s attention away from the conflict in Europe, which US President Donald Trump had vowed to quickly bring to an end during his 2024 White House run.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to bolster air defenses after Ukrainian attacks set ablaze an oil terminal in St Petersburg and also hit a nearby naval base, casting a cloud over a showcase economic forum in his hometown.
Elsewhere, Russian attacks injured nine people in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, setting fire to a local marketplace, regional authorities said.
Russia attacked three districts of the region more than 20 times with drones and aerial bombs, Dnipropetrovsk head Oleksandr Hanzha said on Saturday.
Six were hospitalized, including a man in critical condition, he added.
