Russia blames Ukraine for major Crimea depot fire

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the drone strike that set ablaze a Russian fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol in the latest attack on the Russia-occupied peninsula.

Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said only one drone hit the oil tanks and that the fire had been put out before a disaster occurred.

“The enemy … wanted to take Sevastopol by surprise, as usual, by staging a sneak attack in the morning,” Razvozhaev wrote on the Telegram app. Russian firefighters had shown how to defeat a major blaze “and prevent a catastrophe”, he added.

Moscow has accused Kyiv of sending waves of aerial and seaborne drones to attack Crimea.

A Ukrainian military intelligence official said more than 10 tanks of oil products with a capacity of about 40,000 tonnes intended for use by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet were destroyed, RBC Ukraine reported.

The strike came as Ukraine prepares for a long-promised counter offensive to push Russian forces back from territory they seized since invading in February 2022.

Also Read: Russia pounds Ukrainian cities in renewed air strikes

Ukraine says control of all its legal territory, including Crimea, is a key condition for any peace deal. Russian forces occupied the peninsula in 2014.

Ukraine lacks longer-range missiles that can reach targets in places such as Sevastopol, but has been developing drones to overcome this hurdle.

Ukrainian officials do not usually claim responsibility for explosions at military sites in Crimea, although they sometimes celebrate them using euphemistic language.

Andriy Yusov, a Ukrainian military official, did not say Ukraine carried out the attack. Instead, he told RBC the blast was “God’s punishment” for a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Uman on Friday that killed 23 people.

“This punishment will be long-lasting. In the near future, it is better for all residents of temporarily occupied Crimea not to be near military facilities and facilities that provide for the aggressor’s army,” RBC quoted Yusov as saying.

Zainab Sa’id