Ukraine‘s military has claimed that it has conducted a strike against a large oil facility off the coast of occupied Crimea, the latest of a series of attacks on Russian-controlled energy installations.
Officials in Kyiv say that overnight, the missile forces of the country launched an attack on the Feodosia Terminal – the largest oil-processing facility on the peninsula.
Officials in Crimea who are Russian-installed have not confirmed the attack, but they did acknowledge that there was a fire in the facility. The blast has not been linked to any injuries.
The state-run Tass reported that a municipal emergency had been declared and 300 people were evacuated from Feodosia because of the fire.
Social media footage appeared to show smoke rising above the Feodosia Terminal. Local Russian-installed authorities told RIA Novosti they were working to put out the fire.
The defence ministry in Moscow has confirmed that 12 Ukrainian drones have been shot down overnight over the peninsula, out of the 21 launched by Kyiv.
In announcing the attack the Ukrainian general staff stated that oil products were being shipped from the terminal to “meet needs of the Russian occupation Army“. In 2014, Russia illegally annexed the peninsula.
The facility had been hit by a drone strike from Ukraine in March.
Kyiv said that its strikes against Russian-energy facilities were a fair retaliation to Moscow’s strikes against its own energy infrastructure which often plunged millions of people into darkness.
In June, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that at least 80% of Ukraine’s thermal power and a third of its hydroelectric generation had been destroyed by Russian attacks.
Officials in Kyiv have said that the air force has shot down 32 drones as well as two missiles that Russia launched overnight towards the Ukrainian capital.
Officials from the Air Force said that one Kinzhal missile evaded air defences to hit a region around the Starokostiantyniv airport in the Khmelnytskyi area.
Starokostiantyniv was repeatedly targeted by Russia over the summer. Moscow claimed that the base housed F-16 fighter jets, which were donated by the West.
Since August 2023, when US President Joe Biden authorized willing European allies in the US to send F-16s to Ukraine, around 65 F-16s were pledged by Nato member countries.
Fresh deliveries from the Netherlands are said to have arrived on Monday.
Officials in Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, said that 17 people were injured by a Russian airstrike. Regional head OleksandrProkudin said that a boy, aged two, and a girl, aged four were among the injured when four bombs fell on the city.
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