Ukrainian forces have struck a major Russian petrochemical plant and an oil refining facility in Russia’s Tatarstan region overnight.
Kyiv’s General Staff said they struck the Nizhnekamskneftekhim plant, a major producer of rubbers and plastics and one of the country’s largest such plants, overnight.
In a statement, it added that the Monolit defence and aviation manufacturing plant in the western Bryansk region, which produces helicopters and spare parts, had also been attacked.
Local Russian authorities confirmed the airstrikes, with media also reporting fire at the site.
“Early this morning, Nizhnekamsk was the target of a massive and prolonged attack by enemy drones. As a result of this attack, facilities in the industrial zone were damaged,” the city’s mayor, Radmir Belyaev, wrote on Telegram.
A residential building was also damaged, he added.
Nizhnekamsk, a city of about 240,000 people, is often dubbed the “petrochemical capital” of Tatarstan. It is home to oil refineries and a major petrochemical plant.
Authorities in the region, quoted by Russian media, said three people were wounded.
Ukrainian and Russian media said the strikes caused a fire at the Nizhnekamskneftekhim (NKNK) petrochemical complex, owned by leading Russian company Sibur.
Videos published on social networks showed flames and thick smoke rising above the industrial site.
An engineer at an electricity substation was killed in separate Ukrainian strikes overnight on Taganrog, an industrial port city in the Rostov-on-Don region, which borders Ukraine, regional governor Yuri Slyusar said.
Taganrog mayor Svetlana Kambulova said a fire at a substation had been put out and a local state of emergency had been declared.
The defence ministry in Moscow said in a statement that it had shot down 533 Ukrainian drones between last night and this morning over a dozen regions of Russia and annexed Crimea.
There was no immediate response from Kyiv, which says it targets Russian industrial facilities in response to deadly Russian strikes on its own territory.
Meanwhile Russian aircraft carried out multiple strikes using guided aerial bombs in Zaporizhzhia on last night, injuring six people including a two-year-old child.
A dormitory building was damaged in an attack, most of whose residents are internally displaced people who fled their homes due to the war.
Zaporizhzhia has come under attack almost every day in recent weeks.
Ukrainian soldiers fire a self-propelled howitzer in Kharkiv
Bridges and the Dnipro hydroelectric power plant have been among the main targets.
It comes a day after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said US negotiators floated the idea of Ukraine’s potential withdrawal from its eastern region of Donbas in exchange for joining NATO
This is the first time the question of linking NATO membership to territorial concessions has been raised during peace talks with Russia in Abu Dhabi, Mr Zelensky said in remarks to reporters released by his office.
“The Americans raised a question: ‘What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?” he said.
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“That is why I believe NATO is back on the agenda. But you have also heard (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s signals, and this is an extremely difficult conversation.”
He said Ukraine was discussing “specific security guarantees from NATO and the EU” and that if western countries confirmed them “then I will ask our Ukrainian society what it thinks: do we accept it or not? I have no right to make that decision on my own”.
Mr Zelensky said the EU and NATO are Europe’s only “real security”, warning the Kremlin’s bid to change the continent’s security architecture could lead to more wars.