The Ukrainian military said it carried out a strike on a major oil terminal off the coast of occupied Crimea, the latest in a wave of attacks targeting Russian-controlled energy facilities.
Officials in Kiev said the country’s missile forces launched the attack on the Feodosia plant – the largest oil processing facility on the peninsula – in an attack overnight.
Officials installed by Russia in Crimea did not confirm that the raid had occurred, but they admitted that there had been a fire at the facility. No injuries were reported as a result of the explosion.
A state of emergency was declared at the municipal level, with 300 people evacuated from Feodosia due to the fire, state-run TASS news agency reported.
Footage circulated on social media showed smoke rising above the Feodosia station. Local officials installed in Russia told RIA Novosti that efforts to extinguish the fire are continuing.
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced that 12 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the peninsula overnight out of 21 launched by Kiev.
In a statement announcing the attack, the Ukrainian General Staff said that oil products shipped from the station were being used “to meet the needs of the Russian occupation army.” Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014.
The facility was previously bombed in a Ukrainian drone strike in March.
Kiev has said its strikes on Russian energy facilities are just retaliation for Moscow’s strikes on its own energy infrastructure, which have often plunged millions into darkness.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in June that at least 80% of Ukraine’s thermal energy and a third of its hydropower generation had been destroyed in Russian attacks.
The Crimean explosion comes as officials in Kiev said the air force shot down 32 drones and two missiles launched by Russia toward the Ukrainian capital overnight.
Air Force officials said that a Kinzhal missile managed to evade air defenses and hit an area around Starokstyantinev Airport in the Khmelnitsky region.
The Starokstyantinev base came under sustained Russian fire over the summer, with Moscow claiming that the base housed F-16 fighter jets donated by the West.
NATO countries have pledged about 65 F-16 aircraft since US President Joe Biden first allowed willing European allies to send them to Ukraine in August 2023.
The first batch of planes arrived earlier this summer, with new shipments arriving from the Netherlands on Monday.
