Ukrainian drones have allegedly attacked and destroyed a Russian oil depot in Crimea Saturday.
Drones reportedly attacked a fuel depot in the city of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea. The strike resulted in a massive fire at the depot, in the port city that harbors the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy. The attack comes as Ukraine prepares to mount a summer counteroffensive against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has now gone on for over a year.
“The main thing is that no one was hurt,” Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russian-appointed governor of Crimea, told reporters at a news conference, via the The New York Times. “With the rest — we’ll figure it out,” he added.
Razvozhaev urged residents to remain calm while firefighters put the fire out, adding that no evacuations were necessary and fuel supplies were not affected. He blamed the attack on “enemy drones.” The blaze burned an area of about 10,000 square feet.
Ukrainian military officials did not take credit for the attack. The NYT reports that it does so to maintain secrecy. However, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriv Yusov said that the blaze was “God’s punishment” for an earlier missile strike in the city of Uman, which killed 23 people, including six children.
“This punishment will be long-lasting,” Yusov said. “All residents of the temporarily occupied Crimea should not be near military facilities and facilities that supply the aggressor’s army in the near future.”
He claimed that more than 10 tanks with oil products with a total capacity of 40,000 tons were destroyed in Saturday’s blaze. However, the local Russian authorities said that the damage was less extensive and that the fire had been extinguished as of the afternoon. While Mr. Razvozhaev initially said that two drones had hit the fuel depot, he later clarified to say that a second drone had been shot down before it reached the target.
The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by Russia in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Sevastopol in March to mark the ninth anniversary of the annexation. The Russian military has also heavily fortified the territory in the intervening years. It was a key staging area in the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine.
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The peninsula is critically important to Russia maintaining its control over its occupied territories in Southern and Eastern Ukraine. As such, it has increasingly become the target of Ukrainian attacks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that reclaiming control of Crimea is essential to preventing future aggression by Russia.
The attack could also serve as a precursor to a counteroffensive from Ukraine. The Ukrainian military is cobbling together resources and soldiers to prepare for a counteroffensive to retake lost territory in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Details about the plans are scant because of Ukraine’s policy, but Russian military officials believe it will attack Melitopol, a small city in southern Ukraine that would break the land bridge between forces in the south and east. But attacks aimed at Luhansk and the Donbas are also possible, the Daily Mail reported.
Whichever way the attacks will go, Ukraine says it is almost ready. “Preparations are coming to an end,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told reporters Friday. “In addition to being provided a weapon, it must be mastered. Equipment has been promised, prepared and partially delivered. In a global sense, we’re ready.”