Russia accuses Ukraine of attack on major oil refinery

• 3 February, 00:10

Russia has accused Ukraine of causing fire on its major oil refinery located in southwestern Volgograd region on the night leading to Saturday, following the drone attack attributed to Ukraine.

“Last night, the air defence and electronic jamming repelled an attack by drones in the Volgograd region’s Kalachyovsky and Zakanalye districts. Fire started at the Volgograd refinery after one of the downed drones fell,” regional governor Andrei Bocharov said on Telegram platform.

He added that a firefighting team extinguished the fire by early morning. According the official website of Russian oil giant Lukoil, the company is the largest producer of oil products in the federal South district, encompassing eight regions in southwest Russia. The oil facility is located in the sought of Volograd city. According to V1, a local media outlet, images it released purportedly depicted an explosion that occurred overnight during the assault. Residents informed V1 that they had heard two explosions in the area. It should be noted that Volgograd is located nearly 350km from the Ukrainian border.

Separately, Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia launched attacks with 14 Iranian Shahed drones over night from the directions of Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Russia and Chauda in Crimea, as well as two KH-59 guided air missiles from the Belgorod region near the border. “The enemy directed a significant part of the Shaheds at the energy infrastructure facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Mobile fire groups of the air force and the defence forces of Ukraine destroyed nine enemy UAVs in the Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr regions.”