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Ukraine drone strike caused fire at Russian oil refinery, claims local governor
A day after Russia accused Ukraine of sending drones to attack buildings in Moscow, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region said a drone was the likely cause of a fire that broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery.
The fire was soon extinguished and there were no casualties, governor Veniamin Kondratyev said. The Afipsky refinery is not far from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, near another refinery that has been attacked several times this month.
Separately, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, to the north of Ukraine, says an artillery strike wounded at least one person in the Russian town of Shebekino. He has blamed Kyiv for the attack.
There was no immediate information on who launched the attacks inside Russia, but Moscow has accused Kyiv of a number strikes in recent weeks, while increasing the intensity of its own bombardment on Ukrainian cities.
Russian drone attacks killed one person and wounded four in Kyiv on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials – but the skies over Ukraine were relatively quiet overnight.
Ukraine has denied responsibility for Tuesday’s drone strike on Moscow. Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks in Russia.
Key events
Governor of Russia’s Belgorod region says four injured in shelling on town
The governor of Belgorod, a Russian region that borders Ukraine, has claimed that four people were injured in Ukrainian shelling on a town close to the border.
Two people were hospitalised as a result of the artillery strike on Shebekino, Vyacheslav Gladkov said, adding that it was the third time in a week the town had been hit.
On Monday, Gladkov said that two industrial facilities in the town had been hit by strikes. On Saturday, he said he had come under artillery fire when trying to enter the town, which is only about 7 km north of the border with Ukraine.
There was no immediate response from Ukraine to the latest shelling, but Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for attacks in Russia.
Both Russian and Ukrainian representatives at the United Nations stopped short of fully backing the UN nuclear watchdogs plan to prevent catastrophe at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Rafael Grossi, said Tuesday he was encouraged by the expressions of support from both countries to his “concrete principles.”
The safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power facility, located in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, has been a concern since Russian forces seized it over a year ago.
It has been subject to frequent shelling and ahead of an expected Ukraine counteroffensive, fears have increased that a nuclear disaster could occur amid increased military activity.
Among the IAEA’s stated principles is that there should be no attacks on, or from the plant and that no heavy weapons should be housed there.
The Russian and Ukrainian envoys at the UN blamed each other’s countries for the crisis at Zaporizhzhia, although they did not reject outright the principles put forward by the IAEA.
“Mr. Grossi’s proposals … are in line with the measures that we’ve already been implementing for a long time,” said Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, without evidence.
Ukraine’s ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said: “We take note of the director general’s principles to help ensure nuclear safety and security” at Zaporizhzhia.
White House does ‘not support attacks inside of Russia’
The White House has said it is still gathering information about Tuesday’s drone strike on Moscow, but could not condone attacks inside Russia.
“We do not support attacks inside of Russia. That’s it. Period,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing.
Washington is a major supplier of weaponry to Ukraine – on the condition the country uses it to defend itself and to retake Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces. US officials have repeatedly said that Ukraine has agreed not to use any American provided weapons for attacks on Russian soil.
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On Tuesday, US officials told the AP news agency that a new military aid package for Ukraine is expected to be announced this week and will include additional munitions for drones.
There has been no suggestion that US-made drones or munitions were used in the attacks on Moscow. There has been speculation that at least one of the drones involved was a UJ-22 produced by a Ukrainian company.
The Kremlin blamed Kyiv for Tuesday’s attack, but Ukrainian officials have denied involvement.
Ukraine drone strike caused fire at Russian oil refinery, claims local governor
A day after Russia accused Ukraine of sending drones to attack buildings in Moscow, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region said a drone was the likely cause of a fire that broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery.
The fire was soon extinguished and there were no casualties, governor Veniamin Kondratyev said. The Afipsky refinery is not far from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, near another refinery that has been attacked several times this month.
Separately, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, to the north of Ukraine, says an artillery strike wounded at least one person in the Russian town of Shebekino. He has blamed Kyiv for the attack.
There was no immediate information on who launched the attacks inside Russia, but Moscow has accused Kyiv of a number strikes in recent weeks, while increasing the intensity of its own bombardment on Ukrainian cities.
Russian drone attacks killed one person and wounded four in Kyiv on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials – but the skies over Ukraine were relatively quiet overnight.
Ukraine has denied responsibility for Tuesday’s drone strike on Moscow. Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks in Russia.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name’s Jonathan Yerushalmy and I’ll be with you for the next while.
Twenty-four hours after the first large scale drone strike on Moscow, Russian officials in two separate southern regions have accused Ukraine of launching attacks.
The governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region said that a drone strike was likely the cause of a fire that broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery. Meanwhile, the governor of Belgorod region accused Ukraine of carrying out an artillery strike in the town of Shebekino that left at least one person injured.
More on that shortly, in other news today:
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, accused Ukraine of seeking to “frighten” Russians after Moscow was targeted with a large-scale drone attack for the first time in the 15-month war. He said that Ukraine had chosen the path of attempting “to intimidate Russia, Russian citizens [with] attacks on residential buildings” and added that the drone attacks were “clearly a sign of terrorist activity.”
Ukrainian presidential aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, denied Ukraine was involved. However, he did he predict “an increase in the number of attacks”.
One of the drones used in Tuesday morning’s raid on Moscow appears to have been a Ukrainian manufactured UJ 22 drone produced by the Ukrjet company. Alleged footage of the drone, captured in flight during the attack, appears to match released images of the unmanned aerial vehicle which Russia has claimed has been used in other attempted attacks.
James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, told reporters that Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to defend itself and can “project force” beyond its borders. At a news conference in Estonia on Tuesday, Cleverly said: “[Ukraine] has the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”
The Russian defence ministry said eight drones targeted the city overnight but Russian media close to the security services wrote that the number was many times higher, with more than 30 drones participating in the attack.
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, faced its third air raid in 24 hours on Tuesday morning. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, confirmed that 20 residents were evacuated from a damaged building. One person died and four were injured in the strike.
Restrictions on grain imports from Ukraine into the EU would need to be extended, the bloc’s agricultural minister said on Tuesday, despite opposition from Kyiv. The restrictions were implemented after complaints from eastern EU countries that a surplus of Ukrainian grain was driving down local prices and affecting local farmers.
Ukraine wants to begin work to make its Danube shipping canal deeper as early as this year, to expand its alternative routes to export grain, deputy minister of renovation and infrastructure, Yuriy Vaskov, said on Tuesday. The push for alternative export routes has taken on urgency during the war, after Russia blocked Ukraine’s traditional export routes via the Black Sea.
Sweden’s accession into Nato is “within reach”, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. Sweden formally applied to join Nato last year, but was blocked by Turkey over claims that Kurdish militants had settled in the country. Stoltenberg said it was “possible to reach a solution and enable the decision on full membership for Sweden by “ the Nato summit in July.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine committed to respect the five principles laid out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to try to safeguard Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The principles included that there should be no attacks on, or from the plant and that no heavy weapons should be housed there.
