Ukraine launches drone strikes targeting Russia's strategic oil infrastructure

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Ukraine said Thursday that it had used domestically manufactured drones to expand strikes against strategic Russian oil facilities overnight and target field artillery infrastructure just across the border inside Russia.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that following an attack on an oil depot in Rostov province Wednesday morning, Ukrainian forces had hit an oil storage facility in the Kirov region, northeast of Moscow and more than 900 miles inside Russia and an artillery ammunition dump in the Rossosh district of Voronezh region, about 35 miles from the border with Ukraine.

Confirming the attacks in a social media post , the General Staff said the strike on the Atlas oil depot in Rostov caused explosions and set storage tanks ablaze, but the full extent of the damage inflicted there and in Kirov and Voronezh was "currently being clarified."

It said the missions were carried out by special operations forces and the Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry, in cooperation with other branches of the military.

Both the Rostov plant in Molodezhnyi, just east of occupied Luhansk province, which belongs to Russia's Federal Agency for State Reserves, and the Kirov facility were targeted for their roles in keeping Russia's armed forces supplied.

Russian media reported fresh, powerful explosions at the Rostov plant late Wednesday where firefighters were still fighting fires from the earlier attack.

Kirov. Gov. Alexander Sokolov confirmed a blaze near the Zenit oil products depot in Kotelnich that he said was started when three of five drones targeting the facility fell nearby after being downed by Russian air defenses.

The Kyiv Independent reported a source as saying the Zenit oil depot was a "facility of the enemy military-industrial complex and provides fuel to the Russian occupation forces."

The General Staff pledged more attacks as part of continuing measures to "undermine the military and economic potential of the Russian occupiers and stop Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine."

Ukraine has mounted at least 64 drone strikes against Russian refineries, storage and other oil infrastructure either in Russia or Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, the BBC's Russian service reported Wednesday.