KYIV – Ukraine continued its intensified drone campaign against Russia, with Russian officials saying Sunday that strikes ignited a large oil refinery in the country’s south and left at least two people dead.
The latest attacks form part of Kyiv’s widening long-range strike strategy, which Ukrainian authorities describe as an effort to disrupt Russian fuel supplies and military logistics while increasing pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate.
In Russia’s Krasnodar region, east of occupied Crimea, debris from intercepted Ukrainian drones set off a fire at the refinery in Slavyansk-na-Kubani, Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said. Regional officials reported that one person was killed in Slavyansk and another was injured in a nearby village after drone fragments fell.
Images and videos shared on Russian social media appeared to show a heavy plume of smoke rising above what users identified as the Slavyansk refinery. The Associated Press could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the footage.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged that Ukraine carried out the strike on Slavyansk. He also said a second Russian refinery, located in the Yaroslavl region roughly 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was targeted in the overnight operation.
“Tonight, our ‘long-range sanctions’ reached two oil refineries in Russia,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “Each (strike) means a reduction in the resources that fuel the Russian war machine, and another step toward peace.”
In recent months, Ukraine has sharply expanded attacks on Russian defense industry sites and energy infrastructure, seeking to cut into Moscow’s war revenue as the invasion moves through its fifth year and to bring the conflict’s consequences closer to Russian territory. Western officials say the campaign has complicated Russia’s battlefield operations and added pressure on the Kremlin.
The Slavyansk facility is among the major refineries in southern Russia, with capacity to process nearly 4 million tons of crude annually, according to its operator’s website. It also supplies petroleum products for export through Russia’s Black Sea ports, including fuel oil, naphtha and marine fuel.
There were no immediate reports from Russian authorities about the Ukrainian strike on the refinery in the Yaroslavl region. Local Gov. Mikhail Evraev reported on Sunday morning that some roads between Moscow and the region’s capital, Yaroslavl, were temporarily closed due to “an enemy attack by Ukrainian drones”.
Yaroslavl’s airport also briefly closed overnight, along with others in southern and western Russia, according to the country’s civil aviation agency.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian drone strikes killed one person and injured another in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, its acting Gov. Alexander Shuvayev reported on Sunday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 213 Ukrainian drones during the night, including over Russia, occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.
Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 142 long-range strike drones and eight missiles overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Of those, 125 drones and seven missiles were struck down, the air force said.
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