KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine said Sunday it struck an oil depot in southern Ukraine that supplies oil to Kremlin forces, and Russia claimed further gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where a Russian attack killed five civilians and wounded 15.
Kiev’s security forces used a drone to attack an oil depot used to meet the Russian military’s needs in Russia’s southern Kursk region on Wednesday morning, the Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement, adding that the attack caused a “powerful explosion and fire, possibly involving a container with petroleum products.”
“The Armed Forces continue to use all possible means to weaken the military and economic potential of the Russian occupying forces and force the Russian Federation to stop its armed aggression against Ukraine,” the statement said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said early Sunday that seven Ukrainian drones had been shot down over Russian territory overnight, while regional officials said an oil depot in the Kursk region had caught fire in a drone attack. Firefighters were working to put out the blaze after three fuel tanks caught fire Sunday morning, according to acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov. No one was injured, Smirnov said.
The Kursk region lies on the border with Ukraine’s Sumy region, and Ukraine has repeatedly attacked various sites on Russian territory with drones and other weapons in recent months, including oil depots and other military facilities. Ukrainian authorities have been pressuring the West to allow them to use newer, more advanced weaponry to strike more high-value targets on Russian soil.
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Russian forces also continued to gain ground in Ukraine’s war-torn eastern Donetsk Oblast on Sunday, advancing westward toward the towns of Pokrovsk and Krahove. The Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces had taken two nearby villages, Prokhres and Evhenivka, about 30 kilometers east of Pokrovsk. A day earlier, Russia said it had taken the nearby village of Rozvatke, one of nearly a dozen it has reportedly seized in the oblast this month.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, forcing millions of people to flee to neighboring countries. Seizing the entire city of Donetsk, Ukraine’s industrial heartland scarred by years of fighting, is one of the Kremlin’s main war goals.
Russian forces attacked Donetsk Oblast on Saturday and overnight, killing five civilians and wounding more than 15, local governor Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram report on Sunday. Shortly after, other Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery fire had injured more civilians, including children, in the east and south.
Moscow’s forces attacked the eastern Ukrainian city of Nikopol on Sunday, wounding at least eight people, regional governor Serhiy Lysak reported the same day. He said the victims included a toddler and a 10-year-old girl, six of whom were hospitalized.
Russian artillery fire on Sunday wounded eight civilians, including a 10-year-old and two teenagers, in a village in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, local official Roman Mrochko reported.
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