A satellite image of a burning oil depot in Astakhov, in southern Russia’s Rostov region. Photo: Planet Labs Inc. / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA
Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in a sustained overnight attack, city administration head Serhiy Popko said on Thursday, adding that only minor damage had been sustained as 15 drones were intercepted.
In total there were air raid warnings for nine Ukrainian regions overnight, with Russia using both drones and missiles to mount nationwide attacks, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Moscow-appointed governor of Sevastopol, said that four Ukrainian drones had been downed over the city, the largest in annexed Crimea, while the Russian Defence Ministry reported on Thursday morning that two more Ukrainian drones had been intercepted over Russia’s Bryansk and Belgorod regions and three unmanned Ukrainian military vessels had been destroyed by Russian forces in the Black Sea overnight.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that one person had been killed and two more injured in overnight shelling of the border town of Shebekino. He also announced the evacuation of four more villages in the region.
An oil depot near Astakhov in southern Russia’s Rostov region was targeted in a fresh drone strike overnight, with local news channel Eto Rostov Novosti saying a fourth tank had been hit after three tanks caught fire on Wednesday following a Ukrainian drone strike.
The AFU confirmed that its forces had carried out both attacks on the Rostov region, as well as a strike on the Zenit oil depot in Russia’s Kirov region on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a fire that broke out after a Ukrainian drone strike on an oil depot in the Rostov region town of Proletarsk on 18 August, remains unextinguished over 10 days since it began.