Ukraine war briefing: Drones strike Russia’s Tyumen oil refinery 2,000km away, says Zelenskyy
Reports from Siberia confirm attack, while Ukrainian president says new weapon has 3,000km range; occupied Crimea under attack. What we know on day 1,579 Volodymyr
Reports from Siberia confirm attack, while Ukrainian president says new weapon has 3,000km range; occupied Crimea under attack. What we know on day 1,579 Volodymyr Zelenskiy has confirmed that Ukrainian drones attacked an oil refinery in Russia’s Tyumen region in western Siberia, more than 2,000 km (1,200 miles) from Ukraine. He said Ukrainian company Fire Point had developed new long-range drones capable of travelling more than 3,000km and they had been “successfully deployed”. In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy thanked the Ukrainian military for special operations that “have reached Tyumen Region in Russia, including an oil refining facility.
More than 2,000km from our state border. This is effective work.” Unverified videos posted online showed smoke and flame rising over what was said to be the burning Tyumen refinery, also known as the Antipinsky refinery. The Tyumen governor, Alexander Moor, claimed emergency services were working at the site of “fallen [drone] debris” – a phrasing often used by Russian officials to play down successful Ukrainian attacks. Ukraine’s forces struck an oil terminal at Kerch in occupied Crimea over Saturday night, according to Ukrainian media and online accounts monitoring the war. Nasa satellite monitoring showed a fire at the Kerch seaport where the terminal is located.
In what appeared to be a broader wave of strikes against Russian-held targets in Crimea, an electrical substation at Bilohorsk was reportedly on fire, and there were other attacks at Yevpatoria and the main city of Sevastopol. Russian forces struck the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with glide bombs on Saturday, killing five people and injuring 10, said Ivan Fedorov, the regional governor. Fedorov said there had been nine strikes in the city. He said residents could be trapped in the rubble of damaged buildings. Near the Russian border, a bomb attack killed one person on the outskirts of the city of Sumy, local officials said.
In the southern Kherson region, the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said one person had died in a drone attack on a village north of the region’s main city, also called Kherson. Three children were injured when the central city of Poltava came under Russian shelling, local officials said. Russian bombs struck an apartment building on Saturday in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killing at least one person and wounding nine including a si year-old child, authorities said. Continue reading...
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