In a significant attack in the early hours of Tuesday, Ukrainian long-range attack drones targeted four Russian oil refineries in addition to radar installations and other military targets in Russia, according to Kyiv’s military.
This year, Ukraine has significantly increased its use of drones to bomb Russian oil infrastructure, which it considers to be legitimate military targets that supply Russian forces with fuel for their nearly 28-month-long invasion.
A post on the messaging app Telegram claimed that “unmanned aerial vehicles attacked the Afipsky, Ilsky, Krasnodar, and Astrakhan oil refineries,” according to the Ukrainian military.
The Russian military had earlier claimed to have shot down 70 drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula, 43 over the Krasnodar area of Russia, and one more over the Volgograd area of Russia yesterday.
The SBU security service and the drone operation targeting the Afipsky, Ilsky, and Krasnodar oil refineries, which supply gasoline to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, were carried out in tandem, according to a Kyiv intelligence source who spoke with Reuters.
“The damage of these refineries will significantly complicate the logistics of fuel oil supply, making it more expensive and time-consuming, as it will have to be delivered from other refineries,” according to a source.
The seized Crimea and Bryansk region’s radar sites and electronic intelligence centers were also targeted, according to the Ukrainian military. The specifics of such locations were not stated in the statement.
It stated that explosions and flames had been verified at drone storage and launch sites, command and control centers, and other locations in the Krasnodar region of Russia.
The source claimed that a training facility in the Krasnodar region’s town of Yeisk, which Russia uses to launch drone operations against Ukraine, was the target of the drone attack.
In its statement, the Ukrainian military also took credit for the drone strikes on fuel facilities in the Russian provinces of Tambov and Adygeya on Thursday.
The drone attack that occurred yesterday was in response to Russia’s most recent airstrikes against Ukrainian power plants, which resulted in outages and sparked concerns about the stability of the grid throughout the next winter.
Since March, the Russian strikes on the power grid have severely harmed Ukraine’s ability to generate its own energy. According to Moscow, a portion of the strikes were a response to Ukrainian assaults on Russian territory.
