Ukrainian Drones: To limit each other’s capacity to fight in the war, which is now in its third year, Russia has resumed its aerial bombardment of Ukraine’s power grid, and Kyiv’s forces have once again targeted Russian oil facilities with cross-border drone strikes, officials said on Thursday.
Both sides of the conflict have targeted far-off infrastructure targets, with no significant developments reported along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, where a recent push by the Kremlin’s forces in eastern and northeastern Ukraine has only produced marginal gains.
Russia fired nine missiles and 27 Shahed drones at energy facilities and critical infrastructure in central and eastern Ukraine, marking its seventh significant attack on Ukrainian power plants since Moscow escalated attacks on energy infrastructure three months ago, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. It claimed that air defenses successfully intercepted all of the drones and five cruise missiles.
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According to national power company Ukrenergo, the attack caused “extensive damage” to power structures in the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, and Vinnytsia regions of Ukraine. It stated that there were seven injured workers.
Even though electricity is imported and European nations are providing assistance with emergency supplies, Ukraine has announced prolonged blackouts throughout the nation.
The private energy company DTEK did not reveal where the power plant was that was the target of the overnight attack. DTEK posted on social media that the plant’s equipment had suffered significant damage and that three company employees had been hurt.
The two most destructive recent attacks on Ukraine’s energy supply were a massive attack on May 8 that targeted power generation and transmission facilities in several regions and a barrage that damaged Kyiv’s largest thermal power plant in April.
A Russian Defense Ministry statement claims that the strikes were aimed at Ukrainian energy facilities required for the manufacturing of military hardware and weaponry. ABC News claims that although Ukraine depends mostly on Western military aid, it is developing a small but fast-growing defence industry.
Two days after an attack by the Ukrainians caused a massive fire at another refinery, Russian authorities in two regions reported fires at oil storage depots as a result of drone strikes.
In an attempt to sabotage the Kremlin’s war machine, Ukraine has increased its aerial attacks on Russian territory in recent months, focusing on oil terminals and refineries.
A Kyiv security official told The Associated Press that the drone strikes that happened during the night belonged to the Security Service of Ukraine, also known as the SBU.
The official claims that the attacks commenced with fires at the facilities handling and storing crude oil and its derivatives for the Russian army.
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The official was not authorized to release the information, so he spoke in anonymity.
Murat Kumpilov, the governor of Russia’s Adygea region, asserted that a Ukrainian drone strike started and later put out an oil depot fire in the town of Enem.
Maxim Yegorov, the governor of the Tambov region, reported that an oil depot in the area experienced an oil reservoir fire.
According to the governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, a woman was killed when a drone struck a private residence in the town of Sloviansk.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that over three regions, air defences shot down fifteen Ukrainian drones; however, no damage was mentioned. Since the conflict began, the ministry has claimed to have shot down over 26,000 Ukrainian drones.
