Global Courant 2023-04-29 10:03:20
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
Russian-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev says on Telegram that a huge fire has broken out in Sevastopol.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor, wrote on Telegram that a massive fire has broken out in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol after a suspected drone attack on a fuel storage tank.
“A fuel tank is on fire… Preliminary reports say a drone strike may have started the fire,” he wrote early Saturday, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
He said an area of 1,000 square meters (nearly 11,000 square feet) was engulfed in flames.
Images shared on social media purporting to depict the blaze showed flames engulfing fuel storage tanks and a thick plume of black smoke rising over the city.
“The situation is under the control of our firefighters and all operational services,” said Razvozhayev, adding that no one was injured. “Since the fuel volume is large, it will take time to locate the fire.”
Ukraine has repeatedly declared its intention to retake the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, amid international outcry. The Ukrainian army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
In Sevastopol, an oil depot is on fire after being hit by a drone in the early morning. pic.twitter.com/ll8zY2v8a2
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 29, 2023
Razvozhayev reported on Monday that the Russian military had destroyed a Ukrainian surface sea drone attempting to attack the port in the early hours and that a second drone had exploded. The explosions shattered windows in several apartment buildings but did no further damage, he said.
The attack was the latest in a series of attacks on Sevastopol, the main naval base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Following previous attacks on Sevastopol and other areas, Ukrainian officials have not openly claimed responsibility, but noted Ukraine’s right to attack any target in response to Russian aggression.
The Sevastopol fire comes a day after a barrage of Russian missiles hit residential areas in Ukraine killing 25 people and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his allies to equip his troops with better air defenses, including fighter jets.
“Air defense, a modern air force – without which effective air defense is impossible – artillery, armored vehicles. Everything that is necessary to provide security to our cities, to our villages, both in the hinterland and on the front lines,” Zelenskyy said in a video message on Friday evening.
He condemned the attack in the town of Uman in the early hours of Friday, which he said killed at least 23 people, including four children.
Ten residential buildings were hit by rockets in Uman, Cherkasy region, officials said. An apartment building was destroyed. Eighteen people were injured in the attack, nine of them were treated in hospital.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a woman and her two-year-old daughter were also killed in nightly Russian shelling.
“Russian evil can be stopped with weapons – our defenders are doing it. And it can be stopped by sanctions – global sanctions must be strengthened,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter earlier in the day.
The Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, on Friday gave the total number of missiles fired into Ukraine at night as 23. Of these, 21 were shot down, along with two drones. The Ukrainian military said cruise missiles were also fired near the capital Kyiv, 11 of which were shot down by air defenses.
Firing in the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk killed seven people and injured 19, local authorities said on Friday.
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