Moscow, May 31, (dpa/GNA) – Ukraine dealt another blow to Russia’s oil industry overnight, launching drones at a storage depot near the southern city of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov and a refinery in Saratov on the Volga River, Ukrainian media reported on Sunday. Russian authorities partially confirmed the strikes.
The attacks appear to have had particularly severe consequences in Saratov, judging by images circulating online. “According to preliminary information, there is damage to civilian infrastructure,” Saratov Governor Roman Busargin wrote on Telegram, without providing details.
The refinery in Saratov is owned by state-owned oil company Rosneft, which is headed by Igor Sechin, a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The facility has been previously targeted in Ukraine’s escalating aerial campaign inside Russia.
The governor of the Rostov region, Yury Slyusar, confirmed on Telegram that an oil depot near Taganrog in the Matveyev-Kurgan district was still burning. Firefighting operations were ongoing after a “mass attack” by Ukrainian drones, 50 of which were destroyed by air defences, he said. Ukrainian drones also struck a distribution point on an oil pipeline in the Kirov region, some 800 kilometres east of Moscow, according to the Ukrainian military. The pipeline transports oil from Siberia to Russia’s Baltic Sea ports as well as Belarus.
Russian authorities confirmed the attack, saying it had caused a fire, without providing further details. According to the Russian military, more than 200 Ukrainian drones were intercepted during the night. Drone attacks by both sides have become a daily occurrence since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The range of Kiev’s attacks on Russian oil infrastructure and military production sites has significantly increased in recent months as Ukraine’s drone technology has improved.
GNA