Ukraine’s drones hit pipeline, refinery, fuel depot in overnight strikes
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video of the after-effects of what he called "Ukraine's long-range sanctions" on the social media platform X.
SCREENSHOTS: @ZELENSKYYUA/X
- Ukrainian drones struck multiple oil facilities, including a refinery, pipeline pumping station, and fuel depot across several Russian regions.
- The strikes caused a large fire at the Saratov refinery and a major fire at a Rostov fuel depot; three civilians were injured in Belgorod.
- Russia claimed to down 216 Ukrainian drones, while Ukraine reported downing 212 of 229 Russian drones launched overnight.
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KYIV - Ukrainian drones struck targets across several Russian regions overnight, including an oil pipeline pumping station, a refinery and a fuel depot, Russian and Ukrainian authorities said on May 31, in an escalating campaign of strikes against Russian energy infrastructure.
Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck the Saratov oil refinery on the Volga river, causing a large fire.
Saratov regional governor Roman Busargin said on Telegram that “civil infrastructure” had been damaged in the strike, but gave no more details.
“During the night, our soldiers applied Ukraine’s long-range sanctions against an oil refinery in Saratov, Russia. This is about 700km from the frontline,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Not all the drones struck their targets. Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had downed 216 drones overnight.
Major fire burning after drone hits fuel depot
Kyiv said it had also struck Lazarevo pumping station in the Kirov region - north-east of Moscow and around 1,300km from Ukraine - which serves the Surgut-Gorky-Polotsk pipeline, shipping Russian oil from Siberia to Belarus.
Kirov regional governor Alexander Sokolov said drones had hit a facility in the region, but gave no further information.
In the Rostov region, which borders Ukraine’s Donbas - the focus of fighting in the more than four-year-old war - authorities in the town of Matveyev Kurgan said a major fire was burning after drones hit a fuel depot in the town, which adjoins the Russian-held part of Donetsk region.
Ukraine confirmed the strike.
Governors in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions, both of which border Ukraine, also reported damage, with three civilians injured in Belgorod.
On the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula, Moscow-backed governor Sergei Aksyonov said authorities were introducing restrictions on sales of petrol.
He did not say why, but Ukraine has for months been attacking fuel infrastructure in southwestern Russia, close to Crimea.
Alleged strike on nuclear plant
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 229 drones overnight, 212 of which were downed over northern and eastern Ukraine.
Russia accused Ukraine of hitting a garage at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in occupied Ukrainian territory on May 31. Ukraine’s foreign ministry denied the allegation, which followed a separate accusation of a strike on the plant on May 30, which Ukraine also denied.
The UN’s nuclear energy watchdog, which has inspectors at the Russian-occupied and administered plant, said on May 31 its team observed damage to a turbine building caused by drones on May 30, but did not specify whose drones.
It said that radiation levels at the site remained normal. REUTERS
