KYIV (Reuters) – Russia has been accused by Ukraine’s air force of launching a series of drones and a missile in a recent attack targeting military and critical infrastructure. According to the air force’s statement on the Telegram messaging app, 18 out of the 20 kamikaze Shahed drones launched by Russia were destroyed before reaching their intended targets, along with the missile. One of the repeated targets of previous Russian attacks, the Kremenchuk oil refinery in the central region of Poltava, was hit and subsequently caught fire, as confirmed by Filip Pronin, the head of the region’s military administration. Pronin assured that the fire has been extinguished and the situation is now under control, although there have been no reports of casualties at this time. The exact method through which the refinery was struck remains unknown. Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 20 months ago, the refinery which is currently non-operational has been subjected to multiple attacks. While the reports have not been independently verified by Reuters, Russia has not yet made any comments regarding the incident.
Reporting on the incident, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne contributed to this article. The editing was done by Clarence Fernandez.
