An overnight Ukrainian drone strike has ignited a major fire at an oil depot near the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, capping one of the deadliest weeks of the war in Ukraine in recent months.
More than 120 firefighters have been deployed to battle the inferno, according to the regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev. Emergency officials reported that the blaze erupted after wreckage from a drone hit a fuel tank with a capacity of 2,000 cubic metres (approximately 70,000 cubic feet).
“A drone was downed. Its wreckage hit an oil tank, which caused a fire,” Kondratyev said via Telegram. The oil facility lies roughly 400km from Ukraine’s border.
While Ukraine has frequently targeted Russian infrastructure deemed critical to Moscow’s military efforts, Sochi has rarely come under attack. Kyiv has stepped up long-range drone operations in recent months, often striking deep into Russian territory.
The escalation follows a Russian missile strike on a residential area in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, which left at least seven people wounded, according to Ukraine’s state emergency services. In Russia’s Voronezh region, four people were also injured in a separate Ukrainian drone strike.
Tensions remain high after a Russian assault on Kyiv on Thursday claimed the lives of 31 people, including five children, and injured over 150 others. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, condemned the strike as “depraved”, sharing a photograph of the bloc’s flag flying at half mast in solidarity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has continued his urgent calls for additional air defence systems. On Friday, Germany announced it would soon deliver two additional U.S. made Patriot missile launchers, supplementing the three already provided since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has set an 8 August deadline for peace progress, threatening further economic sanctions against Moscow if no headway is made. Russia has so far dismissed the overtures.
Russia, Ukraine counter data
The Ukrainian air force reported that 76 drones and seven missiles were launched by Russia overnight. Of these, it said 60 drones and one missile were destroyed, though the remaining drones and six missiles struck targets across eight different locations.
Russia’s defence ministry countered that it had intercepted 93 Ukrainian drones, including 60 over the Black Sea and one in the Krasnodar region.
In a further retaliatory move, Ukrainian forces reportedly targeted additional infrastructure central to Russia’s energy and defence sectors over the weekend, following the deadly strike on Kyiv.
