Ukraine says it hit Russian oil sites and military airfield in drone strikes

A general view shows the oil refinery of the Lukoil company in Volgograd, Russia April 22, 2022.
Reuters

Ukraine’s military says it struck an oil refinery, storage facility and military airfield inside Russia, in one of its largest cross-border drone operations since the war began.

Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces said on Saturday that its drones had hit the Ryazan oil refinery, about 180 km (110 miles) southeast of Moscow, sparking a fire on the site. The Annanefteprodukt oil storage facility in Russia’s Voronezh region, which borders northeastern Ukraine, was also targeted, the statement said.

The SBU intelligence agency separately said it had hit Russia’s Primorsko-Akhtarsk airfield, used to launch long-range drones against Ukraine, as well as an electronics factory in Penza that it said supplies Russia’s defence industry.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences had downed 338 Ukrainian drones overnight, without specifying how many were launched. Ukraine’s air force said it destroyed 45 of 53 Russian drones fired towards its territory in the same period.

On the eastern front, Russia’s defence ministry said its troops had captured the village of Oleksandro-Kalynove in the Donetsk region on Saturday. The claim could not be independently verified. Russian forces control nearly 20% of Ukraine’s territory in the east and south after more than three years of war.

There has been no immediate comment from Moscow on the reported strikes against its energy and military infrastructure.

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