Russia said its forces captured the village of Starytsia in the Kharkiv region. (Representative)
Moscow:
Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine had launched a major attack with 62 drones on Russian regions, forcing an oil refinery in southern Russia to halt operations, and that Kiev forces had fired US, French and Ukrainian missiles into territory. controlled by Russia.
Russia shot down at least 103 drones, including 62 over Russian regions, as well as the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) over Crimea, French-guided “Hammer” bombs, and the U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket System ( HIMARS).
Local authorities said six drones crashed on the territory of an oil refinery in Slavyansk, in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. The Interfax news agency said the refinery halted work following the attack.
TASS quoted a refinery official as saying that the payloads carried by the drones launched in Ukraine were larger than previous attacks and included steel balls.
The Slavyansk refinery is a private plant with a capacity of 4 million metric tons of oil per year, about 1 million bpd.
A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters in Kiev that Ukrainian security service SBU and military drones hit the Slavyansk refinery and a military airfield in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region in night raids.
The Ukrainian navy also said it had destroyed the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Project 266-M Kovrovets minesweeper.
Russia said its forces defeated Ukraine’s 24th and 42nd mechanized brigades and the 125th Air Defense Brigade in Lukiantsi, Vesele and Radhospne in the Kharkiv region and repelled attacks by Kiev’s forces elsewhere in the region.
Russia has reported an increase in Ukrainian attacks on its territory since its forces opened a new front in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine earlier this month.
President Vladimir Putin says Russia is creating a buffer zone to protect Russia from such attacks, which Russia says risk triggering a wider war between Russia and the West if Ukraine uses Western weapons.
Putin said on Friday that Russia currently has no plans to take Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city,
The White House said Friday that U.S. policy not to encourage Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons against Russian sovereign territory has not changed.
“We do not encourage or permit attacks using U.S.-supplied weapons systems inside Russian territory. That is policy,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “That hasn’t changed.”
That remark came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday in Kiev that the United States does not encourage Ukraine to attack targets inside Russia with US-supplied weapons, but believes it is a decision that Kiev should take it for herself.
CRIMEA
Russia said on Saturday that its forces had captured the village of Starytsia in the Kharkiv region and had defeated Ukrainian units along the front, including in the Sumy region.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and, along with parts of four other regions controlled by its forces, considers the territories – which make up about 18% of Ukraine – to be part of Russia now. This position was rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he will not rest until all Russian troops are expelled from Ukraine.
Zelenskiy told Agence France-Presse in an interview that he expected Russia to intensify its offensive in the northeast and warned that Kiev had only a quarter of the air defenses needed to defend Ukraine.
AFP also quoted him as saying that while the West did not want Ukraine to lose the war, it feared what a defeat for Russia could mean.
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