Ukraine says it has attacked an oil depot that serves the air base of Russian nuclear bombs By Reuters

Written by Anastasia Malenko

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine launched an overnight strike in central Russia where it set fire to an oil storage facility serving a Russian nuclear bomber base, the Ukrainian military said on Wednesday.

Russian regional governor Roman Busargin said the cities of Engels and Saratov, on opposite sides of the Volga River, had been attacked by “several drones” and that a fire had broken out in Engels at an industrial site, which he did not specify.

He later wrote on Telegram that the fire had spread and two firefighters had died trying to put it out. He declared a state of emergency in Engels, which has a population of about 200,000.

The Ukrainian military reported multiple explosions and a large fire at the Kristal oil storage facility, which it said supplied fuel to the Engels-2 military airfield.

The strike “causes serious air traffic problems for Russian civilians and significantly reduces their ability to strike peaceful Ukrainian cities and civilian objects,” the statement on Telegram said.

Ukraine used “long-range power” in the attack, presidential adviser Oleksandr Kamyshin sent to X.

He used the hashtag #MadeInUkraine to show that the weapons used were not supplied by the West.

Ukrainian general workers also claimed to have staged a successful strike at a Russian military base in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region on Wednesday.

The facility was used by Russia to coordinate attacks on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, he said.

Separately, a Russian attack killed at least one person and wounded three others on Wednesday in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional governor said.

A MISSILE STRIKE

In an escalation of the nearly three-year-old war, Ukraine last year began firing US ATACMS ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows into Russia. Russia responded by launching a new hypersonic missile, the Oreshnik, in Ukraine. The Kremlin has vowed to retaliate each time Ukraine fires Western weapons at Russia.

Russian news reports also said the fire at Engels was an oil rig. Videos and photos posted on social media showed a huge fire burning, sending a dark cloud of smoke into the night sky. Reuters was able to confirm the location in the Engels industrial zone, based on satellite imagery.

“There is enough power and resources to put out the fire in the area,” said Busargin, the district governor in Telegram.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that 11 Ukrainian drones were destroyed overnight in the Saratov region, 21 in other parts of Russia and the Sea of ​​Azov. It did not mention the damage.

Some residents of Engels posted on the Telegram chat forum that they heard multiple explosions. Authorities told people not to panic and ordered them not to take pictures or videos of the drones.

Engels air base is located approximately 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow and hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian border. In December 2022, three Russian Air Force personnel were killed when a plane flying there was shot down.