January 19, 2024, 11:03 GMT
Updated 1 hour ago
Image source: Russian Emergencies Ministry
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Four oil tanks caught fire in the depot near Klinzy
A fire has broken out in a large area of an oil storage facility in southern Russia after officials said it was hit by a Ukrainian drone.
According to Russian media, four oil tanks caught fire and the fire subsequently spread over an area of 1,000 square meters.
According to Russian authorities in the Bryansk region, no one was injured.
The Bryansk governor said the drone was intercepted near the town of Klintsy and its explosives then fell on the oil depot.
The drone attack on Russian oil facilities is the second in two days.
An unprecedented attack targeted a major oil loading terminal in Russia's second largest city, St. Petersburg, on Thursday.
Russian reports suggest the drone was shot down without causing any damage. But there were indications in Kiev that the attack marked a new phase in the strategy far from the Ukrainian border.
“Yes, we reached the goal last night. This thing traveled 1,250 km (776 miles) last night,” Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister of Strategic Industry of Ukraine, said on Thursday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that its air defense systems had shot down a Ukrainian drone over Bryansk at 06:40 a.m. local time (03:40 GMT), and regional chief Alexander Bogomaz later said two other drones had been destroyed without damage.
As the fire raged for several hours at the Klintsy oil depot about 70 km north of the Ukrainian border, black smoke could be seen rising over neighboring train tracks. More than 30 people were evacuated, the governor added.
There were also reports of a drone attack on a gunpowder factory near the city of Tambov, hundreds of kilometers northeast of the Ukrainian border.
A source in Ukraine's main intelligence told media in Kiev that there would be more attacks on military targets inside Russia, as most of its air defense and electronic warfare systems are concentrated in the occupied parts of Ukraine.
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Russia is increasing its forces in Ukraine and those volunteers are deploying to Chechnya earlier this week
Russia has made little progress in its all-out invasion of Ukraine in recent months, but the Defense Ministry said it captured the village of Vesele on Thursday near the destroyed city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Kyiv has not confirmed the claim.
Ukraine has repeatedly warned that its army faces a severe ammunition shortage, but has set a goal of domestically producing one million drones this year. Mr. Kamyshin pointed out that the drone that targeted St. Petersburg on Thursday cost just $350 to produce.
Meanwhile, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has become the latest senior European politician to warn that Russia could seek to expand its war with Ukraine to a NATO member state in the coming years.
“We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day, most recently against our friends in the Baltics,” he told the Tagesspiegel.
“Our experts assume that it could be possible within a period of five to eight years,” he said, adding that he wanted to shake up German society so that the Bundeswehr would become “ready for war.”
NATO commanders announced Thursday that around 90,000 troops would take part in the alliance's largest exercise since the Cold War. “Steadfast Defender” begins next week and runs until May and includes all 31 member states as well as Sweden, which will join the alliance in the coming months.
Sweden's military chief and its civil defense minister both issued a warning this month to prepare for the possibility of war.
“My goal here is not to worry people; “My goal is to get more people to think about their own situation and their own responsibilities,” said Commander in Chief General Micael Biden.
Last October, a report by the German Council on Foreign Relations warned that Moscow “may only need six to 10 years to rebuild its armed forces” once the Kremlin ends intense fighting in Ukraine and the NATO alliance been prepared to repel a Russian attack.