Ukraine attacked Russian border regions with missiles and drones on Wednesday morning, sparking a fire at an oil depot and damaging an “industrial facility,” officials said.
Two separate attacks targeted Russia's southern Rostov region and western Bryansk region, both of which have been hit by cross-border fire throughout Moscow's nearly three-year invasion.
The strikes come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said air defense should save lives “and not gather dust in storage bases.”
Videos purportedly taken in the Bryansk region showed a distant fireball illuminating the night sky over an urban area, while air raid sirens could be heard in footage from the southern Rostov region.
Kyiv said it struck an oil depot being used to "supply the Russian occupation army" in the Bryansk region, while the governor of Russia's Rostov region said a Ukrainian missile attack damaged an "industrial enterprise" in the port city of Taganrog.
Zelensky hailed "tangible blows against Russian targets last night" that he said would help bring the war to an end.
In a post on Telegram he said Ukraine had hit “military facilities on the territory of Russia, as well as facilities of the fuel and energy complex, which is working for aggression against our state and people.”
Kyiv has ramped up strikes on Russian oil and gas facilities this year, curbing Moscow's energy industry and causing billions of dollars worth of damage.
The Ukrainian army said Russia was using the facility in Bryansk as a loading point for the Druzhba oil pipeline, a key supply route for Russian oil heading to much of central Europe.
"A massive fire broke out," Ukraine's general staff said in a statement. It did not comment on the strike on the Rostov region.
The Russian governor of the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, said that Ukraine had attacked a "production facility" with drones but that the blaze had since been extinguished.
Refineries and oil depots are a huge driving force behind Russia's economy, with some facilities being given their own air defense systems to ward off attacks.
Major companies have redirected oil to sites further away from Ukraine, as some Ukrainian drone strikes have reached hundreds of kilometers into Russian territory.
Ukraine says its attacks are "fair" retaliation for Moscow's strikes on its own energy infrastructure, which have cut power to millions of people.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Russian Defense Ministry responded to the attack on a military airfield in Taganrog, saying, ”Six American-made ATACMS ballistic missiles were used. Two of the missiles were shot down by the combat crew of the Pantsir air defense system, while the others were deflected by electronic warfare equipment.”
The Russian military vowed it would respond with “appropriate measures.”
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