London:
A Ukrainian drone struck a major oil processing plant in Russia's Bashkiria region from about 1,500 km away on Thursday, an intelligence source in Kiev said, the longest-range attack since the start of the war.
Ukraine has also hit two oil depots in southern Russia, as Kiev seeks to undermine Russian forces stationed along the front lines in its territory by attacking energy facilities crucial to financing the economy and the war.
Russia's emergency services said a drone strike damaged a pumping station at Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat's oil processing, petrochemical and fertilizer complex in Bashkiria, Russia's largest such plant, state news agency RIA reported.
The region's governor said the factory was operating normally despite the attack. Reuters was unable to determine where the drone was launched or what type of device it was. The nearest government-run part of Ukraine is about 1,400 km away.
The Kiev source said the drone flew 1,500 km, calling it a record, and a catalytic cracking unit went into an attack that showed that “Russian refineries and oil depots serving the military complex cannot feel safe even in the deep rear” .
Moscow says such attacks amount to terrorism and says it has launched retaliatory attacks that have hit Ukraine's energy infrastructure since mid-March, raising fears about the resilience of Ukraine's power system.
Kiev has stepped up its drone attacks on oil processing facilities in Russia since the start of the year, disrupting 15% of Russia's oil refining capacity, according to a NATO official's estimate in early April.
Reuters calculations on April 15 showed that Russia had managed to repair some key oil refineries hit by drones, reducing capacity idled by the attacks from almost 14% at the end of March to around 10%.
ACHIEVING PARISITY
Unable to quickly match Russia's arsenal of cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, Kiev has focused on developing and producing long-range drones so it can hit back at Russia, which bombarded Ukraine during the 26-month invasion.
The head of the state arms manufacturer said on Wednesday that Ukraine produces the same number of deep strike drones as Russia, claiming to have reached parity on a key type of weapon that Moscow has used for long-range strikes.
The Ukrainian source said Kiev's drones also struck two oil depots near the city of Anapa in the southern Krasnodar region, sparking large-scale fires overnight. Both attacks were carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the source said.
The depots were used as transshipment points to supply fuel to Russian forces on the nearby occupied Crimean peninsula, the source said.
Russian authorities said a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire and damaged several oil tanks at a refinery in the Krasnodar region. About six drones were destroyed, but debris fell on a facility near the village of Yurovka, causing a fire, they wrote in the messaging app Telegram.
“The SBU will continue to reduce Russia's economic and logistical potential to wage war,” the source said.
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