Russia and Ukraine traded overnight strikes Thursday, with at least two people killed when a passenger train was hit in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, while Kyiv said it struck an oil refinery deep inside Russia.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on Telegram that two people were killed in the Odesa region’s Berezivka district after a Russian strike hit a passenger train, sparking a fire in the locomotive that was later extinguished.
“There were 340 people on the train. And whoever was operating that drone certainly could not have been unaware that the target was entirely civilian,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the US social media platform X, claiming the train was hit by a jet-powered drone.
“More air defense support and more pressure on Russia are needed if the world is serious about stopping this war in Europe,” Zelenskyy added.
Separately, the Izmail District State Administration said Russian strikes hit port infrastructure in the Odesa region overnight, causing damage and a fire.
The administration later said power was cut in the southeastern part of the port city of Izmail, on the left bank of the Danube River, after local electricity networks were damaged.
Ukrainian private energy company DTEK was working to restore supplies, it added.
Ukraine’s Air Force separately claimed that air defenses shot down 111 of 133 drones launched by Russia overnight.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces carried out overnight strikes against what it described as a temporary deployment point for a Ukrainian Armed Forces unit in the port of Izmail and port infrastructure “used for unloading and storing military cargo.”
It also claimed to have struck a Ukrainian Navy command post in the port of Reni, also on the left bank of the Danube.
– Strikes in Russia
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 362 Ukrainian drones over 17 regions, as well as over the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.
Radiy Khabirov, head of Russia’s Bashkortostan region, said two people were injured in an overnight Ukrainian drone attack targeting a logistics center in the Chishminsky district.
He earlier said debris from a downed drone fell in an industrial zone in the city of Salavat, sparking a fire.
Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace, separately said a fire broke out in the industrial zone where one of its facilities is located.
“Firefighters are working at the scene. A pre-emptive evacuation was carried out at the facility in accordance with safety regulations. No goods are stored at the specified facility,” the company said.
Ukraine’s General Staff later confirmed that it targeted the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil refinery in Bashkortostan, claiming the facility was hit and a fire broke out afterward.
Ukraine has intensified drone strikes on logistics facilities operated by Wildberries in a campaign that began in mid-July and has spread across several Russian regions.
Since July 18, Ukrainian drones have targeted more than 15 Wildberries logistics centers, including facilities in the Moscow, Tambov, Leningrad, Krasnodar, Volgograd and Stavropol regions, as well as in Crimea.
Kyiv has accused the e-commerce retailer of playing a role in Moscow’s military supply chain, while Moscow and Wildberries maintain that the facilities are purely civilian.
By Burc Eruygur
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr
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