Ukraine hits Russian refineries

Ukraine struck two Russian oil refineries hundreds of kilometres from the border in an overnight attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday, as Russia hit a train station and commercial ship in Ukraine.

Both sides have been intensifying their long-range attacks in recent months, leading to a jump in civilian deaths. Kyiv has been firing record numbers of drones at Russia, while Moscow has been launching all-time high missile attacks.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Zelensky said Ukraine had hit oil refineries in the Bashkortostan and Yaroslavl regions -- about 1,300 (800 miles) and 700 kilometres from the front. The attacks were “strengthening the prospects for diplomacy”, Zelensky said.

“Russia must choose peace,” he added, posting a video from Russian social media of black smoke rising above an oil facility.

Russia’s defence ministry said earlier it had downed 605 Ukrainian drones in the night, reports AFP.

The governor of the Yaroslavl region -- north of Moscow, where Zelensky said a refinery had been hit -- said 92 drones had been downed there in what he called the “most massive” attack on the region of the war.

In the Tver region, also north of Moscow, a drone hit a logistics centre belonging to Wildberries -- the Russian e-commerce giant that has been heavily targeted over the past month. Fresh Russian attacks overnight killed three people at the Lozova train station in the northeastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

Three people were also killed overnight and at least 19 wounded in Russian attacks on settlements in the northern region of Sumy.

A commercial vessel carrying Ukrainian wheat was also hit in the Black Sea by Russia, killing one person, the Odesa region governor said.

Meanwhile, Sweden’s top court said yesterday it has upheld a ruling that a cargo vessel seized in the Baltic Sea this year can be handed over to Ukraine, where it is suspected of illegally transporting grain from Russian-occupied territory, reports Reuters.