Ukraine-Russia conflict newest: Kyiv steps up assaults on Putin’s oil community in defiance of Western allies | EUROtoday

Russia ​launched a drone assault on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa in a single day, killing three folks, together with a toddler, and damaging infrastructure, residential and administrative ⁠buildings, the regional ​governor ⁠stated.

“Overnight, Odesa came under another heavy ⁠attack by the enemy,” Oleh ​Kiper, ⁠Odesa regional governor, ‌said on the Telegram app. As well as the ‌three dead, 10 ‌people were injured, he said.

“Residential buildings, critical infrastructure and administrative ⁠facilities were hit. There is significant damage,” Kiper said.

Moscow has escalated its attacks on ‌Odesa, a key logistics ​hub in ‌southern Ukraine and the ⁠country’s largest port, ⁠handling the majority of the Ukrainian ‌grain ​and other maritime ‌exports.

Russia’s military said its ​air defence units had downed 148 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period and officials said emergency crews were restoring power to nearly half ⁠a million households in outages linked to air attacks.

On Sunday evening, a drone killed a civil defence volunteer in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, a frequent target of the Ukrainian ⁠military, and drones also ​hit ⁠an apartment building in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

A Russian defence ministry statement said ⁠air defence units had intercepted 148 drones, mostly ​in ⁠central and southern areas of ‌the country, between 8pm and 11pm (1700-2000 GMT) on Sunday.

The mayor of the port of Novorossiysk, ‌Andrei Kravchenko, said drone debris had struck ‌a high-rise apartment building. There was no word on casualties.

At least eight people were injured, including two children, during Ukrainian drone attacks on the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, with a number of residential houses sustaining damage, Russian authorities said this morning.

Russia did not say if ⁠the port of Novorossiysk, Russia’s largest exporting ​outlet ⁠on the Black Sea, was struck.

Ukraine has significantly intensified attacks on Russia’s energy facilities, including the largest oil exporting hubs both on ⁠the Baltic and Black seas, seeking to reduce Moscow’s revenues from ​the ⁠sales of oil, the lifeblood ‌of its economy.

The area of the port of Novorossiysk is also a location for the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s terminal, which exports oil from Kazakhstan ‌and whose shareholders include US majors, such as ‌Chevron and Exon Mobil.

Usually, when the alerts for air raids are issued, the oil terminals suspend operations. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Russia’s military said in the early hours today ⁠that air defence units had downed 148 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period and officials said emergency crews were restoring power to nearly half a million households in outages linked to air attacks.

Students across Russia are reportedly being offered significant financial incentives to join drone units fighting in Ukraine, serving as both operators and engineers.

This recruitment drive is further evidenced by documents indicating that companies in Russia’s central Ryazan region have been given quotas to enlist workers for the army.

Earlier this year, Ukraine’s defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, admitted that Ukraine has 2 million draft-dodgers and hundreds of thousands more who are absent without leave (awol).

World affairs editor Sam Kiley reports from Izyum, in eastern Ukraine:

Ukraine struck the Bilorichenska coal mine in the ⁠Russian-controlled part of the Luhansk region, damaging a power substation and ⁠leaving ​41 mine ⁠workers trapped underground, a Russian-installed ⁠official said this morning.

“All ⁠the relevant ‌services are taking steps to rescue ‌the miners and ‌restore power to the mine,” ⁠said Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-appointed head of the region.

He said that contact with ‌the miners had ​already been established, ‌and ⁠that they had ⁠a supply of ‌drinking ​water.

Russia ​launched a drone attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa overnight, killing three people, including a child, and damaging infrastructure, residential and administrative ⁠buildings, the regional ​governor ⁠said.

“Overnight, Odesa came under another heavy ⁠attack by the enemy,” Oleh ​Kiper, ⁠Odesa regional governor, ‌said on the Telegram app. As well as the ‌three dead, 10 ‌people were injured, he said.

“Residential buildings, critical infrastructure and administrative ⁠facilities were hit. There is significant damage,” Kiper said.

Moscow has escalated its attacks on ‌Odesa, a key logistics ​hub in ‌southern Ukraine and the ⁠country’s largest port, ⁠handling the majority of the Ukrainian ‌grain ​and other maritime ‌exports.

More than 350,000 people in northern Ukraine’s Chernihiv oblast have been left without power supply due to overnight Russian attacks.

A local energy company, Chernihivoblenerho, said an energy facility in the Novhorod-Siverskyi district was damaged, and “(m)ore than 10,000 subscribers in the same district were left without power”.

Shortly after, another facility in the Nizhyn district was struck, leaving 340,000 without power, including subscribers in the cities of Chernihiv and Pryluky, the company said.

Ukraine is continuing its attacks on Russian oil infrastructure despite calls from the West seeking to end such strikes.

Yesterday, Russian officials said that Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery operated by Lukoil and a Baltic pipeline near St Petersburg.

The governor of Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region said air defence units had repelled a 30-drone barrage.

“As a result of the falling debris, two facilities [of the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery] were damaged,” governor Gleb Nikitin said.

Last week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that some allies have signalled for Ukraine to reduce long-range strikes on Russia’s oil sector due to rising global energy prices.

Zelensky had indicated Ukraine’s readiness to reciprocate if Russia ceases attacks on its energy infrastructure and expressed openness to an Easter ceasefire, which was ultimately rejected by the Kremlin.