A large Russian oil refinery in southern Russia sustained damage after it was set on fire early on July 22, regional officials said, as the Defense Ministry in Moscow said that it repelled a large Ukrainian drone attack targeting several regions.
Sergei Boyko, the governor of Russia's southern Krasnodar region, said on Telegram that debris from a drone that had been shot down sparked a fire at the oil refinery in Tuapse, Russia's only oil-processing installation on the shore of the Black Sea, which belongs to the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft.
Boyko said the fire was eventually contained and that there were no casualties. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
Ukraine, whose energy infrastructure has been decimated by relentless Russian missile and drone strikes, has increasingly targeted in recent months oil facilities inside Russia that work for the military.
Tuapse, one of Russia's oldest refineries, has been targeted by Ukrainian drones in the past, the most recent attack reportedly occurring in May.
The refinery has a daily processing capacity of 240,000 barrels and produces naphtha, fuel oil, vacuum gasoil, and high-sulphur diesel. It exports a large part of its production to countries such as Turkey and China.
Ukraine has not officially commented on the strike, but a source in the Ukrainian defense sector told AFP that drones linked to the Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) were behind the refinery attack.
Meanwhile, the governor of Russia's southern Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a tractor driver was killed and his wife was wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack.
The claim could not be independently verified immediately.
Russia's Defense Ministry said earlier that its air defenses on July 22 shot down 47 Ukrainian drones over five regions and off the Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts.
The ministry said most of the drones were downed over the Rostov, Belgorod, Voronezh, Smolensk, and Krasnodar regions, while 17 were destroyed over the sea.
Separately, Ukraine's air force said its air defenses shot down 16 Russian drones in the south and east of the country.
Regional officials also reported that 10 people were wounded by Russian shelling in Ukraine's southern region of Kherson and two women sustained injuries as a result of Russian bombardment in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
