Ukrainian long-range strikes hit 2 major Russian oil refineries, Zelenskyy says
LONDON -- Ukrainian long-range strikes hit two major Russian oil refineries overnight into Thursday morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram.
Zelenskyy said that the latest wave of "long-range sanctions" -- a phrase Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials often use to refer to Kyiv's long-range attacks on Russian targets -- hit the Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Bashkortostan, more than 800 miles from Ukraine, and the Slavneft-Yanos refinery in the Yaroslavl region, around 435 miles from Ukraine.
"Today, our long-range sanctions once again proved effective in limiting Russia's oil profits, which it uses to finance the war and the killing of Ukrainians," Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram.
Ukrainian forces also struck "two military patrol boats and vessels of the shadow fleet" in the Black Sea, Zelenskyy said.
"Thank you to all the soldiers of the Defense Forces who are systematically developing our long-range capabilities, thereby increasing our chances for diplomacy. Russia must choose peace," the Ukrainian president added.
Yaroslavl governor Mikhail Yevrayev said in posts to Telegram that air defenses downed 93 Ukrainian drones over the region. Four people were injured by shrapnel, Yevrayev said.
The governor also reported "a hit on storage tanks at a refinery" which he blamed on falling drone debris. "Emergency services are working to extinguish the fire," he wrote.
The Yaroslavl refinery is one of the largest in Russia, with a reported processing capacity of around 15 million metric tons per year, or around 300,000 barrels per day.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 605 Ukrainian overnight. Among the other areas targeted was the capital Moscow. The city's Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said air defenses intercepted at least five drones heading toward the capital on Thursday.
Russia continued its own long-range strike campaign against Ukraine on Wednesday night. Ukraine's air force said on Thursday that Moscow launched 101 drones and four missiles into the country overnight, of which 66 drones were shot down or otherwise suppressed.
Twenty-nine drones and one missile impacted across 18 locations, the air force said.
In the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa, local officials said that at least one person was killed and three other people injured in a Russian attack on a ship carrying wheat.
And in Kharkiv, in the northeast of the country close to the border with Russia, officials said that Russian attacks -- including one on a train station -- killed at least five people and injured several more.
Russia's Defense Ministry said in a post to Telegram that it "struck fuel and energy infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, logistics centers used in the interests of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, storage sites for strike drones, as well as temporary deployment points for Ukrainian armed formations and foreign mercenaries."
