A major oil terminal in the city of Feodosia in Russian-annexed Crimea was still burning three days after Ukrainian missile strikes, media reported Wednesday.
On Monday, Ukraine’s military claimed its missile forces had carried out a successful strike on the Feodosia offshore oil terminal, which it called the largest on the Crimean peninsula. Russian-installed authorities said there were no casualties.
The fire spread from the initial 800 square meters to 2,500 square meters as of early Wednesday, according to the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Feodosia’s Russian-installed mayor Igor Tkachenko said 1,129 people have been evacuated from the affected area. Crimea’s Russian-installed leader Sergei Aksyonov promised to compensate residents for property damage.
Despite assurances that air quality poses no threat to nearby residents, the local consumer protection watchdog reported high levels of sulfur dioxide in one of its air samples near the flames.
Pantsir-S short-range air defense systems have been deployed at the oil terminal since at least the fall of 2022, according to satellite images shared by the Russian-language edition of the RFE/RL news organization.
The outlet later reported that the terminal was nationalized by Russia’s occupation authorities and sold in 2019 to a company linked to President Vladimir Putin’s university friend Viktor Khmarin.
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