Fires were reported at two Russian oil depots following widespread Ukrainian drone strikes at targets across southwestern Russia overnight, according to Russia’s Emergency Situation Ministry.
The first fire broke out at an oil depot in Russia’s western Voronezh region in the immediate aftermath of a Ukrainian drone attack overnight, Governor Alexander Gusev said on Friday, adding that drone wreckage had fallen on the facility, causing an empty oil tank to catch fire.
According to Gusev, the resulting fire was small, had been put out immediately, did not cause damage to the oil depot and nobody was injured in the blaze.
The Emergency Situations Ministry also reported a fire at an oil storage facility in the Perm region of the Russian Urals which had still not been extinguished on Friday morning. It was unclear whether the fire, which at one point covered an area of 20,000 square metres, was caused by insufficient fire safety measures or malfunctioning electrical equipment.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that the country’s air defences had intercepted and destroyed a total of 18 Ukrainian drones overnight, six of which were flying over the southwestern Belgorod region, another six over the western Voronezh region, five over the Sea of Azov, which is between annexed Crimea and Russia’s Krasnodar region, and one over the southern Rostov region.