Oil depot catches fire in Russia after Ukraine's drone attack

Oil prices found some support after a barrage of Ukrainian drones hit an oil depot in Russia’s Volgograd region.

PHOTO: Flags of Russia and Ukraine. Getty Images

The drones deployed by Kyiv caused a fire in an oil depot and a power substation situated in Russia’s Volgograd region yesterday. The attack has rekindled supply concerns in the global oil market.

The debris from the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) launched by Ukraine caused the fire, Russia’s state-owned media agency TASS reported.

The fire in the substation was promptly extinguished, however, the oil depot was still ablaze, Volgograd’s regional governor Andrei Bocharov said in a Telegram post. “As a result of the fall of the UAV debris, fires broke out at a substation in the city of Frolovo and an oil depot in the city of Kalach-na-Donu," TASS quoted Bocharov as saying.

The Russian air defense system took down 38 drones on Tuesday, including 21 over southern Russia’s Rostov region, and seven over the Kursk region in western Russia along the Russia-Ukraine border, the Ministry of Defense of Russia said in a statement on its official Telegram messaging channel.

These strikes come as a retaliation to Russia’s missile attack on Monday, which hit the largest children’s hospital in Kyiv and killed at least 41 civilians, according to a Reuters report. The attack was followed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s warning of a counterattack.

Ukraine has ramped up its airstrikes on energy infrastructure and oil facilities in Russia to curb oil supplies in the country and limit its revenue to fund the war, according to oil market analysts.

By Aparupa Mazumder 

Please get in touch with comments or additional info to news@engine.online