kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — A massive Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea Friday morning caused power outages in the city of Sevastopol and set fire to a refinery in southern Russia, Russian authorities said.
The drone raids marked Kiev’s attempt to retaliate during Moscow’s offensive in northeastern Ukraine, adding to pressure on the outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces, which awaiting late deliveries of crucial arms and munitions from Western partners.
The Russian Defense Ministry said air defense downed 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, another 44 over the Krasnodar region and six over the Belgorod region. It said Russian warplanes and patrol boats also destroyed six maritime drones in the Black Sea.
Mikhail Razvojaev, governor of Sevastopol, which is the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, said the drone attack damaged the city’s power plant. He said it could take a day to fully restore energy supplies and warned residents that power would be cut in some parts of the city.
“Communal services are doing their best to restore the electricity system as quickly as possible,” he said in a statement.
Razvozhayev also announced that the city’s schools would be temporarily closed.
Previous Ukrainian attacks damaged planes and a fuel storage facility at Belbek air base near Sevastopol, according to satellite images released by Maxar Technologies.
In the Krasnodar region, authorities said a drone attack Friday morning caused a fire at an oil refinery in Tuapse, which was later brought under control. There were no casualties.
Ukraine has repeatedly targeted refineries and other energy facilities located in the Russian heartland, causing significant damage.
Ukrainian drones also attacked Novorossiysk, a major Black Sea port. Krasnodar region governor Veniamin Kondratyev said fragments of downed drones caused several fires but there were no casualties.
Belgorov Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone hit a vehicle, killing a woman and her 4-year-old child. Another attack set fire to a fuel tank at a gas station in the area, he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops are fighting to halt the Russian advance into the northeastern Kharkiv region, which began late last week.
The town of Vovchansk, located just 5 kilometers from the Russian border, has been a hotspot of fighting in recent days. Ukrainian authorities evacuated some 8,000 civilians from the city. The Russian army’s usual tactic is to reduce towns and villages to rubble with airstrikes before its units enter them.
Russia has also tested defenses at other points along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line that snakes north-south across eastern Ukraine. That line has barely changed over the past 18 months in what has become a war of attrition. Recent Russian attacks have taken place in the eastern region of Donetsk, as well as in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north and in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. The apparent goal is to exploit Ukraine’s depleted resources and exploit their weaknesses.
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