Fire at Rosneft refinery
Ukraine attacks Russia again with drones
March 23, 2024, 11:29 a.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
Despite US insistence, Ukraine is again attacking Russian oil refineries. Air defense claims to have repelled numerous drone attacks. But a fire breaks out at a facility owned by oil giant Rosneft.
Ukraine appears to be continuing its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries unabated despite warnings from the US government. Russian authorities reported attacks on two refineries in the Samara region, around a thousand kilometers from the front line. Governor Dmitry Azarov said on Telegram that one of the attacks caused a fire at the Kuibyshev refinery. There were no injuries.
The Kuibyshev refinery, operated by the Russian oil company Rosneft, is one of the largest in the Samara region with a production capacity of seven million tons of oil per year, according to its official website. According to the information, the fire has now been extinguished.
Azarov also said that a drone attack on another oil refinery in the region had been repelled “without damaging the technical equipment.” The Russian Defense Ministry also reported that a total of twelve drones had been destroyed over the Bryansk (five), Belgorod (five), Voronezh (one) and Saratov (one) regions. Eleven rockets were also destroyed over the Belgorod border region.
Two dead in Belgorod
Two people were killed and seven others were injured in the attacks in Belgorod, according to local authorities. As Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced, two districts and the capital of the same name, Belgorod, were hit by drones and air strikes by the Ukrainian army. He published a photo of a residential building whose facade was partially destroyed. One man was killed in Belgorod and another in a drone strike outside the city. The information cannot be verified.
The British newspaper “Financial Times” reported on Friday that the US government was urging Ukraine to refrain from attacks on Russian oil facilities. The background is the fear of an escalation and rising global oil prices before the US presidential election.
Drive up the price of gasoline
The attacks came 24 hours after Russia carried out one of its largest waves of airstrikes in the more than two-year conflict, hitting dozens of energy facilities in Ukraine. Afterwards, more than a million people were temporarily without power.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian secret services have systematically fired on Russian oil refineries with combat drones, even far behind the front. Military experts suspect that Ukraine wants to use the attacks to drive up gasoline prices in Russia in order to fuel public discussion about the costs of the Russian attack on Ukraine. However, economists are not afraid of rising oil prices on the world markets: Russian oil exports have nothing to do with the refineries, say she.