(Moscow) A new drone attack, blamed on Ukraine, caused a fire at a refinery in southern Russia, regional authorities in Krasnodar said on Sunday morning, reporting one dead after a crisis suspected heart attack.
The Russian army also claimed to have shot down 35 Ukrainian drones overnight over different regions of Russia, including Moscow, a particularly high figure.
Ukrainian attacks have increased this week in the country, where the last day of the presidential vote to re-elect Vladimir Putin takes place on Sunday.
“The fire on the territory of the Slavyansk oil refinery is now completely extinguished,” the operational headquarters of the Krasnodar region reported on Telegram. “Preliminary information indicates that one person died at the time of the drone attack, with the probable cause of death being a heart attack.”
IMAGE TAKEN FROM A VIDEO OBTAINED BY REUTERS
View of the sky over Slavyansk-on-Kuban after the explosion
The Slavyansk-on-Kuban refinery is located in the Krasnodar region, east of the Sea of Azov.
On Saturday, a refinery was set on fire in Samara, some 1,000 km from the Ukrainian border, after drone attacks.
An oil refinery was also targeted by a drone on Wednesday in Ryazan, about 200 km southeast of Moscow, causing injuries. On Tuesday another refinery was targeted in the Nizhny Novgorod region, 800 km from the border with Ukraine and a fire broke out the same day in a fuel complex in the Oriol region, about 160 km away. from the Ukrainian border.
In total, the Russian Defense Ministry said air defense “intercepted and destroyed 35 drones over” the Moscow, Belgorod, Kaluga, Oriol, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Kursk and Krasnodar regions.
REUTERS PHOTO
An investigator talks to people near cars damaged by shelling in Belgorod on March 17.
A 16-year-old girl was also killed in a strike on Belgorod, said the regional governor, Ukraine having increased attacks against this border area in response to Russian bombings on its territory.
“To our great sadness, a 16-year-old girl was killed,” Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram, explaining that the house she was in caught fire as a result of the attack. His father was also injured, he added.