Russian officials say Ukrainian strikes killed five in Crimea and border regions
Russian-appointed authorities reported deaths and power cuts after overnight attacks, while Ukraine said Russian strikes hit rail and fuel sites.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
Russian officials said Ukrainian overnight attacks killed at least five people in Crimea and Russian border regions, while Moscow reported shooting down hundreds of drones. The strikes underscored the growing focus by both sides on energy, fuel and transport targets as the war grinds on.
Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed governor of Crimea, said two people, including a child, were killed and two others were wounded in what he described as overnight enemy attacks into Thursday. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and the peninsula remains a frequent target in the war.
Authorities in Russia’s Bryansk region said drone strikes killed two people there. Officials in Belgorod region said one person was killed.
Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences downed 269 Ukrainian drones over Russia and Crimea overnight. Ukrainian authorities did not provide an immediate account of the reported strikes in the material available.
Aleksandr Kharitonov, head of the Krasnoarmeysk district in Krasnodar Krai, said debris from a drone strike caused a fire at the Poltavskaya oil depot. He wrote on Russia’s state-run Max platform that the blaze began after unmanned aerial vehicle debris fell at the site.
Aksyonov also said energy infrastructure in Crimea had been damaged. He said on Telegram that authorities would introduce temporary power outages across the peninsula as a result of the attacks.
Ukraine also reported Russian attacks on its transport and fuel infrastructure on Thursday. Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, chief executive of the state rail company Ukrzaliznytsia, said on Facebook that Russian strikes hit three rail locomotives and killed one driver.
Pertsovskyi said locomotives were struck in the northeastern Sumy region and in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. Ukrainian officials also said two petrol stations were hit across the country.
Both Russia and Ukraine have targeted fuel and transport facilities during the war, seeking to disrupt military supplies and gain advantages near the front line. The latest reported attacks fit that pattern, with energy sites, depots and rail equipment again among the targets.
Russia and Romania trade diplomatic measures
The fighting coincided with new diplomatic friction in the region. Russia’s foreign ministry said Thursday that it had expelled Cristian Istrate, Romania’s consul general in St Petersburg, declaring him persona non grata.
The Russian ministry said Istrate was handed a note that also set out the planned closure of Romania’s consular office in St Petersburg. Romania’s foreign ministry called the move predictable.
The expulsion followed Romania’s closure last month of the Russian mission in the Romanian port city of Constanta. Relations have deteriorated after a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in Galati, a Romanian city on the border with Ukraine, last month.
Romania said that crash wounded two people. The incident drew anger from Bucharest and from Romania’s NATO and European Union allies.
Separately on Thursday, the French navy seized another tanker it said was linked to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet. French authorities said the action was part of European efforts to enforce sanctions on Moscow and limit Russia’s main revenue streams.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.