According to local authorities, an overnight Ukrainian drone attack has sparked a fire at a Sochi oil depot, a resort in southwest Russia, which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
The attack took place one day after the Ukrainian military claimed to have set on fire the Ryazan oil refinery in central Russia. Since Russia started its war in February 2022, Ukraine has regularly attacked Russian oil and gas infrastructure as a response to attacks on its own soil.
Veniamin Kondratiev, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday that “Sochi suffered a drone attack by the Kyiv regime last night.”
According to Kondratiev, the drone wreckage struck an “oil tank, which caused a fire.”
Mayor of Sochi Andrei Proshunin claimed that the blaze was being put out without any injuries and that the situation was “completely under control.”
According to Rosaviatsia, Russia’s air transport regulator, air traffic was briefly suspended at the airport in Sochi but has since resumed.
In contrast to other Russian cities, air strikes on Sochi, which is 400 kilometers (250 miles) southeast of the Ukrainian border, are comparatively uncommon. However, two people were killed by Ukrainian drone strikes in the area late last month, according to local authorities.
The fire has not received any comments from Ukrainian officials.
In response to the rise in Russian attacks on its territory in recent weeks, which have resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians, Kyiv has warned that it will increase its air strikes against Russia.
Russia launched 76 attack drones and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to Ukraine’s air force, and hit eight locations throughout the country on Telegram on Sunday. One missile and 60 of the drones were destroyed, according to Ukraine’s air defense units.
Regional governors reported that in the first 24 hours leading up to Sunday morning, at least three people were killed and more than 12 were hurt in Russian attacks in the front-line regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson.
At least seven people were hurt in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv as a result of a Russian missile strike, according to the regional governor, who also destroyed or damaged dozens of homes and civilian infrastructure.
The Mykolaiv region was on the front lines at the start of the war, where artillery strikes and aerial attacks were frequent. Drones and missiles have remained a constant threat there even after Russian forces were forced back in late 2022.
No injuries or damage have been reported from Russia’s overnight launch of a short-lived missile attack on Kyiv.
If no agreement is reached by early September, Trump, the president of the United States, declared in July that he would impose “severe tariffs” on Russia. Trump promised to give Putin 10 to 12 days last week, which means he wants to see progress in peace efforts by Thursday through Saturday.
The Kremlin has so far rejected the idea of an end to the Ukrainian conflict.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, stated last week that he wanted peace, but that his demands for a “unchanged” Moscow’s military offensive had not been met.
Source: Aljazeera
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