LVIV, Ukraine—Ukraine hit a Russian fuel terminal on the Baltic Sea, one of its longest-range strikes yet in a growing effort to damage Russia’s war economy.
The Security Service of Ukraine hit the Ust-Luga Complex near St. Petersburg on Sunday with drones, triggering a large-scale fire, Ukrainian officials said. The attack will cause economic losses and damage logistics for fuel supplies to the Russian military, the officials said.
Russian officials said the fire service was tackling the blaze, which forced the evacuation of the plant, without giving a cause for the blast.
Ukraine has stepped up strikes on facilities that supply Russia’s military as it seeks to hold back fresh Russian offensives aimed at seizing more than the nearly 20% of Ukrainian territory that Moscow’s forces currently hold.
Ukraine has used domestically produced, long-range drones to strike inside Russia, as Kyiv’s Western backers have barred it from using weapons they provide to hit across the border.
Russian gas company Novatek, which owns the fuel terminal in Ust-Luga, said that work there had been halted and that the fire had been brought under control. It blamed the fire on “external action,” without elaborating. Novatek says the processing facility produces oil products, including jet fuel and fuel oil, which are exported to international markets.
Russian occupation authorities in the east-Ukrainian city of Donetsk, meanwhile, said that at least 25 civilians had been killed when Ukrainian artillery shells struck a market there on Sunday. Russian state news agencies published videos from the scene showing several motionless bodies. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t independently verify the claims.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has entered a bloody stalemate as it approaches a third year, with Russian forces taking heavy losses and struggling to advance in recent months after seizing the initiative following Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last year.
But Ukraine has had successes targeting Russian warships and logistics facilities with long-range strikes using aerial and sea drones. It has also shot down several Russian warplanes in recent weeks.
Drones struck an oil refinery in Russia’s south on Friday, causing a large fire. Air-raid alarms were announced in occupied Crimea on Sunday and the bridge connecting the peninsula to the Russian mainland temporarily closed as officials said air defenses shot down four Ukrainian missiles.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that air-defense forces had shot down drones in the Tula Region south of Moscow and the Smolensk Region to the west of the capital late Saturday.
Also Sunday, North Korea said Russian President Vladimir Putin would visit Pyongyang soon, as the two countries build closer ties in opposition to the West. North Korea’s foreign ministry hailed relations in a statement following a recent visit by its foreign minister to Russia.
North Korea has provided Russia with vast quantities of artillery ammunition and, more recently, short-range ballistic missiles that Moscow is using against Ukraine.
The Kremlin has said Putin hopes to travel to North Korea in the near future for what would be his first visit in more than two decades.
Serhii Bosak contributed to this article.
Write to James Marson at [email protected]
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