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MOSCOW: A massive drone attack on Russia’s southern city of Volgograd killed one person and caused a fire in an industrial area, a local official said Thursday, as Ukraine claimed to have struck a nearby refinery.
The attack hit a 24-story apartment block, damaging balconies and shattering windows of nearby houses, Volgograd governor Andrey Bocharov said on Telegram,
“A 48-year-old civilian man was killed by shrapnel from the attack,” he said.
“Falling debris caused a fire in an industrial area in the Krasnoarmeysky district,” he said, adding that the blaze had since been extinguished.
Volgograd, more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, is an industrial hub home to gas and petroleum refining plants.
Ukraine has stepped up its drone attacks deep behind the front lines, targeting Russia’s energy sector, but fatal strikes so far from the border are still relatively rare.
Unverified images circulating on social media showed a large fire at an oil refinery in the region and an apartment block with charred black marks on the outside and smashed glass strewn across a parking lot.
Ukraine said it had successfully hit the oil facility.
“Explosions and a fire were recorded in the target area,” the Ukrainian General Staff said on Telegram.
Kyiv’s security chief said recently that Ukraine had carried out nearly 160 successful strikes on Russian oil facilities so far this year.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had downed 75 Ukrainian drones, the majority over the Volgograd region.
Moscow, whose forces launched a full-scale offensive on Ukraine in 2022, has also escalated aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities and its rail network, triggering warnings the country could face a winter of power blackouts and disruption to heating supplies.
Russia fired 135 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday.
Eight people were wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region when a drone hit a residential building, he said.
“The targets are our critical infrastructure — everything that supports ordinary civilian life,” Zelensky said, urging Western allies to slap more sanctions on Russia.