Ukraine has attacked an oil depot in occupied Crimea

Ukraine’s military says it has carried out an attack on a major oil terminal off the coast of the occupied Crimean peninsula, the latest in a wave of attacks on Russian-controlled energy facilities.

Officials in Kiev said the country’s missile forces launched the attack on the Feodosia terminal – the largest oil processing facility on the peninsula – in an overnight attack.

Russian-installed officials in Crimea did not confirm the attack but acknowledged there was a fire at the facility. No casualties were reported as a result of the blast.

A state of emergency has been declared at the municipal level, with 300 people evacuated from Feodosia due to the fire, state news agency Tass reported.

Images circulating on social media showed smoke rising above the Feodosia terminal. Local officials installed in Russia told RIA Novosti that efforts to extinguish the fire were ongoing.

Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said 12 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over the peninsula, out of a total of 21 launched by Kiev.

In a statement announcing the attack, the Ukrainian General Staff said oil products shipped from the terminal were used to “satisfy the needs of the Russian occupation army.” Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014.

The facility was previously hit by a Ukrainian drone strike in March.

Kiev has said its attacks on Russian energy facilities are fair retaliation for Moscow’s attacks on its own energy infrastructure, which have often plunged millions of people into darkness.

At least 80% of Ukraine’s thermal energy and a third of hydropower generation have been destroyed by Russian attacks, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in June.

The explosion in Crimea comes as officials in Kiev said the air force had shot down 32 drones and two missiles that Russia launched towards the Ukrainian capital overnight.

Air Force officials said one Kinzhal missile managed to evade air defenses and hit an area around the Starokostiantyniv airport in the Khmelnytskyi region.

Starokostiantyniv has come under constant Russian fire over the summer, with Moscow commandeering the base with F-16 fighter jets donated by the West.

About 65 F-16s have been pledged by NATO countries since U.S. President Joe Biden first authorized willing European allies to send them to Ukraine in August 2023.

The first batch of planes arrived earlier this summer, and new deliveries from the Netherlands are said to have arrived on Monday.

Elsewhere, in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, officials said 17 people were injured in a Russian airstrike. Regional chief Oleksandr Prokudin said a two-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl were among those injured when four bombs were dropped on the city.