Ukraine Strikes Russian Energy Infrastructure Again After Hitting Offshore Oil Terminal
Al Jazeera
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said it attacked the Tamanneftegaz terminal in Krasnodar, causing fires at five fuel tanks and two oil pumping stations. Russian officials confirmed one fatality. The SBU vowed to continue targeting Russia's oil and gas industry.
A Ukrainian drone attack on a seaside terminal in southern Russia killed one person, local authorities said, marking the latest in a series of strikes on Russian infrastructure.
Krasnodar region governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram on Saturday that drone debris caused a fire at a facility in the Temryuk district. He did not provide details, but Russian news agencies reported damage to a Black Sea export terminal handling crude oil, petroleum products, and liquefied gas in the village of Volna.
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said on Saturday that one of its recent strikes targeted the Tamanneftegaz terminal in Krasnodar, describing it as "the largest liquefied hydrocarbon transshipment complex in southern Russia." The SBU stated that the attacks hit five fuel tanks and two oil pumping stations, igniting fires at the storage area and cargo loading zone.
The attack is part of an intensified Ukrainian campaign against Russian energy infrastructure, including oil refineries, storage depots, and pipelines deep inside Russian territory, which has inflicted damage on Russia's economy after more than four years of war. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Ukrainian strikes "are causing us damage," but said Russia would recover quickly and escalate attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.
In a separate development, the Ukrainian military claimed to have struck an oil processing and pumping facility near the town of Kotovo in Russia's Volgograd region, sparking a fire. Russian authorities confirmed an attack caused a blaze at a local industrial site.
Meanwhile, power was restored to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, after a previous attack cut off external electricity supply, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In a statement, Ukraine's SBU pledged to continue targeting Russia's oil and gas industry, calling it "the funding source for the war against Ukraine." "Oil revenues are converted into missiles, drones, and ammunition to attack Ukrainian cities," the SBU said. "Therefore, the SBU will systematically continue to deprive the Russian war machine of resources to wage war."
Peace talks to end the war, which began in February 2022, have largely stalled, with Putin recently rejecting an invitation for direct dialogue with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration has mediated several rounds of peace talks after promising to quickly resolve the war, will join a G7 session alongside Zelenskyy in France on Tuesday, according to a senior U.S. official.