On Friday, a Ukrainian drone targeted an oil storage depot in western Russia, resulting in a substantial fire, officials reported. This incident occurred as Kyiv’s forces seemingly expanded their attacks on Russian soil, just ahead of the two-year anniversary of the ongoing war.
The drone reached Klintsy, a city approximately 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the Ukrainian border, causing four oil reservoirs with a combined capacity of 6,000 cubic meters (1.6 million gallons) to ignite, as stated by the local governor and the state news agency Tass.
This strike appears to be part of Ukraine’s recent escalated efforts to unsettle Russians and challenge President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that life in Russia is proceeding normally before the March 17 presidential election.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pledged to target more locations within Russian border regions this year, exploiting the perceived vulnerability of more distant targets as Ukrainian forces enhance their capabilities with longer-range drones.
In response to the drone threat, the Russian city of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, canceled its traditional Orthodox Epiphany festivities for the first time.
Ukrainian national media, citing an official in Ukraine’s Intelligence Service, reported drone attacks on a gunpowder mill in Tambov, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) south of Moscow. However, conflicting reports suggest that the plant was operating normally.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the downing of a Ukrainian drone on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, with the wreckage falling on the premises of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal.
This incident fits the pattern of Ukraine targeting strategic locations inside Russia. St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, is approximately 900 kilometers (560 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
In Klintsy, electronic countermeasures were employed to jam the drone’s air defenses, but it still managed to drop its explosive payload on the facility, causing no casualties, according to Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz. The fire proved challenging to extinguish, requiring specialized equipment, and 32 people were evacuated from homes near the depot.
Notably, this depot had been targeted by a Ukrainian drone in May of the previous year, but the damage at that time was apparently less significant.
Simultaneously, Russian shelling in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region resulted in the death of a 57-year-old woman, while a landmine claimed the life of a man, as reported by the Ukrainian president’s office on Friday.
