The Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region needed to suspend some operations after it was damaged in a Ukrainian drone strike, state news agency TASS quoted a manager overseeing the ability as saying on Saturday.
Ukraine has lagged behind in some places on the battlefield and, despite U.S. requests to not achieve this, has systematically targeted Russian energy infrastructure assets in an try to disrupt Russia's economy and thus its ability to finance its war effort.
A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters that Ukraine attacked the Ilsky and Slavyansk oil refineries in Russia's Krasnodar region with drones early on Saturday, causing fires on the facilities.
The same source said Ukrainian drones also attacked the Kushchevsk military air base in the identical region overnight.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defense units destroyed 66 Ukrainian drones over the territory of the Krasnodar region and two more over the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“The work of the (Slavyansk) plant was partially suspended. Exactly 10 UAVs (drones) flew directly into the factory, there was a strong fire. There could be hidden damage,” said Eduard Trudnev, safety director of Slavyansk ECO Group, the corporate that operates the plant, was quoted by TASS.
Roman Siniagovskyi, a neighborhood government official in Slavyansk, said earlier on Saturday on his official Telegram channel that the refinery's storage tank facilities weren’t damaged, but that a distillation tower was hit.
He said a hearth attributable to the attack had been extinguished and nobody was injured.
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