Ukraine struck Russia with at least 75 drones yesterday, sparking a fire in an industrial area of the southern city of Volgograd, killing at least one and halting dozens of flights across the country, Russian officials said.
Ukraine has for several months been striking Russian oil refineries, depots and pipelines in a bid to undermine the Russian economy as Russian forces advance in eastern Ukraine.
Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said a 48-year-old man was killed by shrapnel and that a fire was sparked in an industrial zone in the Krasnoarmeysk district of the city, which was formerly known as Stalingrad.
The district is home to Lukoil’s major Volgograd refinery which has been repeatedly targetted by Ukraine. In 2024 the Volgograd refinery processed 13.7 million tonnes of oil, or 5.1 percent of the total volume at Russian refineries.
Russia’s defence ministry said that 75 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight, including 49 in the Volgograd region.
Russian media said that 13 airports across Russia halted flights amid the drone attack. Russia said on Wednesday that its forces were advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city.
Moscow says taking Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, would give it a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Donetsk region – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Russia wants to take the whole of the Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk provinces. Ukraine still controls about 10 percent of Donbas – an area of about 5,000 square km.
Russia has been threatening Pokrovsk for more than a year, using a pincer movement to attempt to encircle it and threaten supply lines, rather than the deadly frontal assaults it employed to capture the city of Bakhmut in 2023.
Russia said it had captured 64 buildings in the city, once home to 60,000 people, over the past 24 hours and repelled Ukrainian attacks from Hryshyne to the west.
