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Ukraine on Sunday launched a wave of strikes against Russian oil targets, hitting a cargo port in the Baltic Sea and two tankers that Ukraine says are being illegally used to transport Russian oil.
An overnight strike by truckers sparked a fire at Russia’s largest oil export port on the Baltic Sea, the port of Primorsk, according to Russian regional governor Alexander Drozdenko.
The port, operated by Russia’s state oil company Transneft, can handle hundreds of thousands of barrels a day. Primorsk, which was targeted several times in March, lies more than a thousand kilometers from Ukraine, between the Russian-Finnish border and Russia’s second-largest city St.
Drozdenko said the drone strike did not cause an oil spill, but did not comment on casualties or damage.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had destroyed dozens of military and other targets, while also causing significant damage to oil port infrastructure.
“Another Russian Kalibr missile carrier is out of action. Major General Yevhen Khmara reported the successful destruction of targets in the port of Primorsk,” Zelenskyy wrote in a Telegram post on Sunday.
Five years after the war with Russia, Ukraine is facing ongoing labor problems. Andrew Chang explores the benefits and limitations of using unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) on the front line, in Ukraine and beyond. Photos provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock and Getty Images
According to Zelenskyy, Ukrainian drones also hit the Karakurt missile boat, a patrol boat and a tanker that is part of Russia’s shadow oil fleet, which is used to evade Western sanctions and lower Russian energy prices.
In another post earlier on Sunday, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces shot down two more “shadow” tanks near the entrance to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk on Sunday.
“These tanks were mainly used to transport oil. Now they can’t anymore,” he said. He added that the operation was led by the chief of staff of Ukraine, Andrii Hnatov.
Moscow did not immediately acknowledge Zelenskyy’s claims of any strike.
Kyiv has recently stepped up its attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure. Ukrainian officials say oil revenues directly fund Moscow’s full-scale offensive, now in its fifth year.
Drone strikes have killed civilians near Odesa and Moscow
Elsewhere, two people were killed and three others were injured when Russian warplanes attacked the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa late Sunday, Ukrainian emergency services reported. It said the attack destroyed three residential buildings.
These drones also hit the infrastructure of the port, causing a fire that was extinguished by emergency teams, the emergency services reported.
Russia’s overnight strikes also injured six people in the Dnipropetrovsk region of central Ukraine, the agency said. The bus carrying 40 children was damaged, but no one inside was injured, he said.
In Russia, a Ukrainian airstrike west of Moscow killed a 77-year-old man, Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported on the Telegram messenger app. He said the murder happened near the city of Volokolamsk, which is 120 kilometers from the center of Moscow.
Vorobyov added that six drones were shot down in the Moscow region, which surrounds but does not include the Russian capital. At least five other drones were brought down on the way to Moscow itself, according to Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported on Sunday that 334 Ukrainian UAVs crashed overnight in Russia and occupied Crimea.
On Sunday night, Russia attacked Ukraine with 269 drones and missiles, according to the Ukrainian military. Ukrainian forces shot down 249 drones, and 19 ballistic missiles and drones were recorded in 15 locations, the air force said in a Facebook post.
