Russia said a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire and damaged several oil tanks. (Representative)
London:
A Ukrainian drone struck a major oil processing plant in the Russian region of Bashkiria on Thursday, some 1,500 kilometers away, a Kiev intelligence source said, in the most far-reaching strike since the start of the war.
Ukraine has also struck two oil deposits in southern Russia, as Kiev seeks to undermine Russian forces pressing along the front lines on its territory by attacking energy facilities that are crucial to financing the economy and war.
Russia’s emergency service said a drone strike damaged the building of a pumping station at Gazprom’s Neftekhim Salavat oil, petrochemical and fertilizer processing complex in Bashkiria, Russia’s largest such plant, the news agency reported. state RIA.
The region’s governor said the plant was operating normally despite the attack. Reuters was unable to establish where the drone was launched and what type of device it was. The nearest government-controlled part of Ukraine is about 1,400 km away.
The Kiev source said the drone flew 1,500 km, considering it a record, and hit a catalytic cracking unit in a strike that showed that “Russian oil refineries and depots serving the military complex cannot feel safe, even in the rear.”
Moscow claims that such attacks amount to terrorism and has launched what it considers to be revenge attacks that have targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since mid-March, raising fears about the resilience of Ukraine’s energy system.
Kiev has intensified drone attacks on oil processing facilities in Russia since the beginning of the year, disrupting 15% of Russia’s oil refining capacity, according to an estimate made by a NATO official in early April.
Reuters calculations on April 15 showed that Russia had managed to repair some key oil refineries hit by drones, reducing spare capacity from the strikes to about 10%, down from nearly 14% at the end of March.
ACHIEVING PARITY
Unable to quickly match Russia’s vast arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles, Kiev has focused on developing and producing long-range drones so it can counterattack Russia, which has bombed Ukraine during its 26-month invasion.
The head of a state arms manufacturer said on Wednesday that Ukraine was producing the same number of deep-strike drones as Russia, claiming it had reached parity in a key type of weapon that Moscow has been using for long-range strikes.
The Ukrainian source said Kiev’s drones also struck two oil deposits near the city of Anapa in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, causing large-scale fires overnight. Both attacks were conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the source said.
The depots were used as transshipment points to supply fuel to Russian troops on the occupied Crimean peninsula, the source said.
Russian authorities said a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire and damaged several oil tanks at a refinery in the Krasnodar region. Around six drones were destroyed, but debris fell on a facility near the village of Yurovka, sparking a fire, they wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
“The SBU will continue to reduce Russia’s economic and logistical potential to wage war,” the source said.
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