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Ukrainian warplanes knocked out power in the largest city in Russian-held Crimea on Wednesday and targeted areas in central and southern Russia, local officials said, stressing Kyiv's attacks on energy infrastructure.
Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian oil refineries, depots and oil supply routes this year, raising fuel prices in Russia, where authorities have limited sales in other regions.
Fuel shortages have worsened on the Crimean peninsula. The Russian-backed governor of Sevastopol this week ordered the immediate closure of public transport and restaurants and said street lights would be dimmed to protect the city during nighttime attacks.
On Wednesday, he said the recent surge had reduced power and that trolley buses would not operate and parents should keep children at home.
The operation to return the goods was still ongoing even though Kyiv was “trying to deprive us of our normal living conditions and sow panic,” Mikhail Razvozhayev said in a text message.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 following street protests that forced Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, from power. Few countries recognize the annexation and Kyiv has vowed to take back the territory.
Ukrainian military commander Robert Brovdi said the drones hit the main power station in the Sevastopol power station in Crimea.
Russian fuel is affected
In the central Russian region of Nizhny Novgorod, Governor Gleb Nikitin said debris from a falling Ukrainian plane damaged an industrial area and killed two people.
The undisclosed facility was not seriously injured, he said. The region is home to NORSI, Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery, one of the largest oil plants in central Russia that temporarily halted or reduced output in May after a drone attack, Reuters reported.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its defense aircraft shot down 323 drones overnight in regions across the country.
Authorities in Russia's Orenburg region, more than a thousand kilometers southeast of Moscow and near the border with Kazakhstan, said the drones were shot down in an industrial area.
Ukrainian forces attacked the Orenburg gas refinery and Russia's only helium plant, both in the Russian region of Orenburg in the same night, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said on Wednesday.
A fire has been recorded at the sites and the extent of the damage is being assessed, the General Staff said.
Ukraine has said its plan to target Russian power centers with long-range drones is aimed at cutting off a key source of Russian military funding and showing Russians the four-year conflict orchestrated by Moscow is far from over.
A Moscow oil refinery will be offline for at least six months after being heavily damaged in a Ukrainian airstrike, two industry sources told Reuters on Wednesday, complicating Russia's efforts to deal with the world's largest nationwide fuel shortage.
The refinery, located on the southern outskirts of the Russian capital, is the largest supplier of fuel to the Moscow region. It has been hit twice this month by Ukrainian drones, forcing it to suspend operations.
“It will take at least half a year to repair,” said one of the sources about the damage.
Black smoke clouded the air in Moscow after a wave of Ukrainian warplanes struck one of Russia's biggest oil refineries for the second time in days. The attack injured at least 16 people and disrupted air traffic.
Faced with a fuel crisis, Russia is considering banning diesel exports, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday. The newspaper Vedomosti, on the other hand, reported that the importation of fuel was considered to deal with the shortage, especially in Crimea, where the sale of fuel to the public has been temporarily suspended.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused Kyiv of trying to destabilize his country's society and said his government would use other means to end the effects of the strikes.
Both sides say they are not targeting people, but thousands of people have been killed in both countries.
In the Russian border town of Belgorod, a man was killed and a woman was injured in a drone attack, while in the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliia, Russian gunfire killed one person on Wednesday, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, Russian troops have taken control of the Ivolzhanske area in Ukraine's Sumy region, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
Reuters could not independently verify details of the latest claims or battlefield developments.
