Ukraine renews attack on burning Russian oil depot and sinks ferry in Sea of Azov port

An oil depot in Russia’s southern Rostov region that has been on fire since Sunday came under renewed attack from Ukrainian drones on Friday morning, Telegram news channel Baza reported.

Drones first attacked the depot in the town of Proletarsk on Sunday, causing a huge fire to break out, the response to which has left at least 41 Emergency Situations Ministry firefighters injured so far, though the fire has still not been extinguished.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Friday that it had intercepted four drones over the Belgorod region and three over the Kursk region overnight, one of which was shot down near the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, according to Bloomberg.

In the Russian port of Kavkaz on the Sea of Azov, a ship used to transport fuel tanks was struck by a Ukrainian Neptune missile and sank, the Krasnodar regional authorities said on Thursday. The fate of the five sailors on board the vessel remained unclear, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, posted an emoji with a ferry and a red cross, but made no further comment.

Despite Ukraine’s ongoing offensive in the southern Kursk region, Russia’s military commanders have decided not to redeploy significant numbers of forces from eastern Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, quoting a source close to the Kremlin. 

Units that have already been redeployed to combat the Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory were unlikely to be frontline troops, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, while independent military analyst Yan Matveyev told Bloomberg that Russia would need up to 50,000 troops to take back the areas Ukraine had captured since launching its incursion earlier this month.