Ukraine has said its drones have struck an oil depot inside Russia in the latest strike by Kyiv against Moscow’s energy infrastructure.
Russian Telegram channels reported that explosions occurred at the depot around midnight Friday in the city of Oryol, about 230 miles southeast of Moscow.
Ukraine has continued to use drones and missiles to strike energy and military targets inside Russia, hoping to hurt Moscow’s war machine.
Videos posted by locals of the latest incident appeared to show a drone hitting a storage tank and causing explosions, reported the Telegram channel ASTRA.
The full extent of the damage was not immediately known, and it is unclear if there were any casualties. Ukraine’s General Staff said on Facebook on Saturday its special operations units were behind the strike on the Stalnoi Kon linear production dispatch station at the facility that supplies oil products to the Russian army.
Oryol Oblast borders the regions of Kursk to the southwest, Bryansk to the northwest, and Tula to the east.
The regional governor, Andrey Klychkov, said on Telegram that 11 drones had been downed over the region and the fire was localized at the oil depot. No casualties were reported. “Emergency services are carrying out additional work to completely eliminate the consequences,” Klychkov said, “fortunately, there are no victims from today’s attack.”
The X (formerly Twitter) account OSINT Technical said that local sources had reported that “the post-strike fire was burning out of control.” Next to a video of the aftermath, the X channel War Translated wrote, “the oil depot in Oryol is still smoldering as of this morning, with the sky covered with thick smoke.”
It comes two days after Ukraine’s forces attacked an oil-loading pipeline near the city of Bryansk, setting it on fire.
Ukraine’s General Staff said that part of the Druzhba pipeline was targeted because its main function was to store and distribute diesel to tanks and railway transport “actively used to supply the occupying army of the Russian Federation.”
Meanwhile, Russia is continuing with its own large-scale aerial attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, firing around 290 missiles and drones across the country on Friday with explosions heard in the regions of Odesa, Vinnytsia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Cherkasy, Ukrainian authorities said.
State energy operator Ukrenergo said facilities in several regions were damaged leading to shutdowns which are expected to increase.
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