Missiles fired by the Ukrainian navy struck an oil terminal at the Russian port of Kavkaz in the Krasnodar region on Friday, the Ukrainian military said. The attack was part of a bigger operation by the Ukrainian military and security service to disrupt the logistics of Russian forces in annexed Crimea.
The Ukrainian military reported explosions at the oil terminal site and said Ukrainian drones also struck another oil depot in the Krasnodar region. “Russia’s ‘modern’ and ‘effective’ air defence system once again proved powerless against our missiles and unmanned systems and failed to protect important facilities used for logistics and supply of the Russian army,” the military said.
The Russian defence ministry said its air defence destroyed five missiles and 29 drones targeting Krasnodar. Falling drone debris caused a fire at an oil depot in the Temryuk district, damaging several tanks filled with fuel and injuring two people, according to local Russian officials.
The Ukrainian security source said the operation was carried out over several days and also included strikes on power facilities in the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014. The source said a day before, the Ukrainian drones hit a Russian long-range radar detection system located near Armyansk in Crimea, “blinding the Russian air defence on the significant part of the front.”
Unable to rapidly match Russia’s vast arsenal of missiles, Kyiv has focused on developing and producing drones to hit back at Russia, which has bombed Ukraine throughout the 27-month-old invasion.