Ukrainian Drone Strike Hits Key Russian Oil Port, at Least One Vessel Hit
A Ukrainian drone attack struck one of Russia’s main Black Sea oil ports on Sunday, causing a fire and damaging at least one ship, as Kyiv tries to undermine Russia’s war effort by targeting its energy infrastructure.
Ukraine has for several months been striking Russian oil refineries, depots and pipelines in a bid to undermine the Russian economy.
Footage on Russian and Ukrainian Telegram news channels appeared to show a terminal and one tanker ablaze at night. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the timing or location of the images, Reuters reported.
Russian authorities said two foreign vessels had been damaged in the attack on Tuapse, one of the biggest oil terminals on the Black Sea, sparking a fire.
“As a result of the drone attack on the port of Tuapse on the night of November 2, two foreign civilian ships were damaged,” the emergency operational headquarters of the Krasnodar region said in a statement.
The operational headquarters said that there were no casualties among the crews of the ships and that all fires had been extinguished but that “the buildings and infrastructure of the terminal” had sustained damage.
Kyiv’s General Staff said in a statement that its forces had struck infrastructure of the Tuapse oil refinery. An official from Ukraine’s SBU domestic security service said five recorded drone strikes on an oil terminal had damaged an oil tanker, loading infrastructure and nearby port buildings.
