The authorities in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region have said that three people were killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on port facilities in the village of Volna on Wednesday evening.
According to Krasnodar region Governor Veniamin Kondratiev, four oil tanks caught fire outside the village, which is located on Russia’s Taman Peninsula across the Kerch Strait from annexed Crimea.
Two of the three people killed in the attack were port employees, Kondratiev added, while eight people were also hospitalised for their injuries, according to the Krasnodar Operational Headquarters.
Ukrainian open-source intelligence channel Supernova+ reported that the strike had targeted the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal, an important hub for the export of Russian oil and gas products, as a shipment was being loaded onto a tanker.
The terminal has come under repeated Ukrainian attacks in recent weeks, with the AFU reporting that its units had caused damage to the same facility in strikes on two separate occasions in late December.
Kondratiev said that Wednesday’s attack was the second Ukrainian airstrike on the Krasnodar region in as many days, though what was initially reported to be a fatal Ukrainian drone strike on an apartment block in the town of Novaya Adygea, which faces the city of Krasnodar across the Kuban River, on Monday was later revealed to have been caused by a stray Russian air defence missile.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday that its air defences had intercepted 11 Ukrainian drones over five Russian regions overnight, as well as three over Crimea. The Ukrainian Air Force, meanwhile, said it had downed 80 of 94 Russian drones launched at the country overnight.
In the southern port city of Odesa, some 58 people were evacuated from a residential building on Thursday morning after a Russian drone hit its upper floors, according to Governor Oleh Kiper.
In Kyiv, around 3,000 apartment blocks remained without heating as of Thursday morning, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said, as damage to the country’s national grid caused by Russian airstrikes forced residents of the Ukrainian capital to endure freezing winter temperatures.
On Wednesday, Klitschko told The Times that an estimated 600,000 people had left the Ukrainian capital since the start of January, with Russian strikes driving the city towards a “humanitarian catastrophe” in temperatures as low as -18C.
