Ukrainian drones sparked a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s southern Volgograd region on Saturday, Russian officials said, days into an intense exchange of long-range attacks that both sides have framed as aimed at energy infrastructure.
Volgograd Gov. Andrei Bocharov said in a Telegram post published on the channel of the local administration that there were no immediate reports of casualties and that the people living near the depot may have to be evacuated. The post did not specify the damage.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Saturday that it had struck the Zhutovskaya oil depot overnight. In a statement on Telegram, it said the depot supplies fuel to Russian forces and that damage was being assessed.
The General Staff did not provide details on casualties, but the strike added to a pattern of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy sites. Kyiv officials have said those strikes aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue needed to pursue its full-scale invasion.
Ukraine’s officials also accuse Russia of targeting the country’s energy system in a way that can affect civilians’ access to heat, light and running water. Kyiv has described it as an attempt to “weaponize winter.”
Saturday’s attack came a day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, Ukrainian officials said. They said the bombardment killed at least four people in the capital.
Ukrainian officials said that for only the second time in the nearly four-year-old war, Russia used a hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine, which they described as a clear warning to Kyiv’s NATO allies. They said the intense barrage also included the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile.
Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, said Friday’s attacks “have resulted in significant civilian casualties and deprived millions of Ukrainians of essential services, including electricity, heating and water at a time of acute humanitarian need.”
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Saturday that heat supply would be fully restored in Kyiv by the end of the day. She said areas on the right bank of the Dnieper River would gradually lift emergency blackouts and return to scheduled outages, while resuming power supply on the left bank would be more complicated due to significant damage to the power grid, she added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that its forces used aviation, drones, missiles and artillery to strike Ukrainian energy facilities and fuel-storage depots.
Separately, Ukraine’s air force said Russia struck with 121 drones and one Iskander-M ballistic missile, and said 94 drones were shot down. Russia’s Defense Ministry said 59 Ukrainian drones were neutralized overnight over Russia and occupied Crimea.
Ukraine’s military said it also carried out strikes of its own, including on a drone storage facility belonging to a unit of Russia’s 19th Motor Rifle Division in Zaporizhzhia, and on a drone command and control point near the eastern city of Pokrovsk.