Russian officials have reported a series of drone strikes overnight targeting oil facilities inside Russia, including a major depot near the critical Crimean Bridge and a refinery nearly 1,400 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.<\/p>\n
The strikes caused massive fires and temporary shutdowns at the facilities, though there were no immediate claims of responsibility from Kyiv. However, the long-range nature and coordination of the strikes bore the hallmarks of previously successful Ukrainian drone and missile attacks deep behind Russian lines.<\/p>\n
The apparent escalation in Ukraine\u2019s ability to strike Strategic Russian fuel and energy assets comes as the war grinds on through its 15th month. As Moscow\u2019s invasion has faltered, Kyiv\u2019s forces have adopted daring long-range strikes as a key part of their tactics to degrade Russian logistics and morale.<\/p>\n
Near the Crimean Bridge that links mainland Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula, a drone hit ignited a massive fire at an oil storage facility in Krasnodar territory overnight. Authorities closed the bridge road temporarily as the fire raged. The 19-kilometer bridge is a critical supply line for Russian forces in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Even more worrying for Moscow was the reported drone attack on the Salavatnefteorgsintez oil refinery in the Bashkortostan region of central Russia. Video showed a massive explosion and fire at the refinery, one of Russia\u2019s largest and located over 1,400 kilometres from Ukraine\u2019s border.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ukrainian regime has once again shown its terrorist substance, carrying out attacks on civilian targets causing huge risks to human lives,\u201d charged Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He blamed Kyiv for \u201csabotaging\u201d Russia\u2019s critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials have neither confirmed nor denied any role so far. Analysts believe Kyiv is trying to target Russian fuel, ammunition and logistics nodes ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive in the coming weeks or months. By striking deeper inside Russia, Ukrainian forces aim to degrade Moscow\u2019s ability to supply and reinforce its invasion forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia falsely expected that keeping the war outside its borders would make it easier domestically and strategically,\u201d said military analyst Mathieu Boulegue. \u201cBut clearly Ukraine now has the capability to bring disruption and a sense of insecurity inside Russia itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moscow has vowed to respond with harsh retaliation for any further Ukrainian attacks. The cycle of escalating strikes on each side\u2019s territory threatens to destabilize the conflict further and increase risks as the war drags on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The strikes caused massive fires and temporary shutdowns at the facilities according to Russian reports, though there were no immediate claims of responsibility from Kyiv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":406,"featured_media":16361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1010,469,468,2460,281,78,215],"class_list":["post-16360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-crimea","tag-dmitry-peskov","tag-kremlin","tag-kyiv","tag-moscow","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}