Ukraine war: Kyiv launches mass drone assault in Crimea and southern Russia

Ukrainian forces have been pictured firing a 120 mm mortar near the frontline city of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine.

The city has become one of Russia’s main targets over the past few months, with Ukrainian forces holding the east and southeastern outskirts despite extensive deployments of Kremlin troops.

Ukraine’s military launched a “mass” drone attack on southern Russia’s Krasnodar region, killing one person and targeting an oil refinery, among other sites, local officials said.

A worker in a boiler room was killed when drone debris crashed into it, regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said.

Emergency officials said three municipalities came under attack. Fragments from one drone fell on a guest house in Temriuk district, but its residents were evacuated and there were no injuries.

Emergency crews were working at the sites of the attacks.

Ukraine’s military said its drones struck four oil refineries, radar stations and other military objects in Russia in an attack on Friday morning.

“Unmanned aerial vehicles attacked the Afipsky, Ilsky, Krasnodar, and Astrakhan oil refineries,” the Ukrainian military said.

“Additionally, radar stations and electronic intelligence centres of the Russian invaders in the Bryansk region and the temporarily occupied Crimea were struck,” the statement said.

The Ukrainian military also said it struck drone storage and preparation sites in Russia’s Krasnodar region.

A drone has hit the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, injuring at least two people and causing a small fire, local authorities said.

Ukraine has been systematically targeting Russian energy infrastructure to try to disrupt Russia’s economy and its ability to fund its military effort, and its military said on Friday it had hit four oil refineries and military objects in Russia.

The Ilsky refinery is one of the main fuel producers in southern Russia, with a capacity to refine 6.6 million tonnes of crude (132,000 barrels per day) a year.

The head of the local district, Andrei Doroshevsky, said the fire had been put out, adding: “This night, the civilian infrastructure of our region was subjected to a massive attack by the criminal Kyiv regime.”

South Korea’s foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador in protest of the pact between Moscow and North Korea signed in Pyongyang this week.

First vice foreign minister Kim Hong-kyun conveyed Seoul’s stance on the pact and military cooperation between Russia and North Korea to Georgy Zinoviev, the top Russian envoy to Seoul, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.

Mr Kim told Mr Zinoviev that Russia’s military support for North Korea harms South Korea’s security and would inevitably have a “negative impact” on relations between Seoul and Moscow. He also urged Russia to “act responsibly,” according to the ministry.

South Korean National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin said on Thursday that Seoul would review the possibility of supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to the landmark pact.

A junkyard of burnt cars. Shattered glass and shell fragments. Bodies lining the streets.

This is Oleksandr Mykhed’s language of war. This is the language of Ukrainians. This is, he says, what we should be ready for: “Because this might happen in your country, and you’d better be prepared for that.”

Mykhed – one of Ukraine’s most prolific authors – is in London promoting his tenth book, The Language of War. His once floppy blonde hair is gone, shaved into a military-style buzz cut instead; it is a nod to his second job, the one he did not choose.

My colleague Tom Watling has more in this report:

Russian air defences downed 70 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and Crimea overnight, the Russian defence ministry has claimed via the RIA news agency this morning.

The ministry also said Russian forces destroyed six Ukrainian sea drones in the Black Sea.