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Several energy and industrial sites deep inside Russia were targeted in a series of Ukrainian strikes overnight on Saturday, according to Russian and Ukrainian authorities.
In a post on Telegram, the Ukrainian military said it had confirmed a direct hit on the Sheskharis oil terminal in the southern port city of Novorossiysk and that a fire had broken out at the scene.
Local authorities in Novorossiysk said two people were injured following the attack on the city.
The Sheskharis oil terminal and depot is the export terminus for the main oil pipelines operated by Russian state-controlled company Transneft.
Images posted by the Russian outlet Astra appeared to show smoke rising above the oil terminal, but they could not be verified.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that a separate Ukrainian attack had targeted the Metafrax Chemicals plant in Perm Krai, which he said was around 1,700 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.
“Metafrax Chemicals is an important part of Russia’s chemical industry. The enterprise’s products supply dozens of other Russian military manufacturers, including aviation equipment and drones, missile engines, and explosives,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X.
Ukraine has expanded its mid- and long-range strike capabilities, deploying drone and missile technology that it has developed domestically to battle Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion, which Moscow launched in February 2022. Kyiv has been ramping up attacks on Russian oil assets that have played a key part in funding the invasion in recent weeks.
Russia vows ‘severe’ retaliation for alleged Ukrainian attack on college dormitory
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry vowed “inevitable and severe punishment” for an alleged Ukrainian drone strike on a college dormitory in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Starobilsk on Friday.
Russian officials said on Saturday that the strike had killed 12 people born between 2003 and 2008.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed there were “no military facilities, intelligence service facilities or related services in the vicinity”.
Ukraine’s General Staff said that overnight on 22 May, “a number” of Russian targets were struck, including an oil refinery, ammunition depots, air defence systems, and command posts. It also said it had targeted one of the headquarters of Moscow’s elite Rubicon drone unit.
At a UN Security Council emergency meeting on the strike, held at the request of Russia, Ukrainian diplomat Melnyk Andrii denied his Russian counterpart’s accusations of war crimes, calling them a “pure propaganda show” and asserting that Friday’s operations “exclusively targeted the Russian war machine.”
Additional sources • AP, AFP
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