Ukraine hits oil refineries deep in Russian territory

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - MOSCOW — Ukraine struck two Russian oil refineries hundreds of kilometres from the border in an overnight attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday, as Russia hit a train station and commercial ship in Ukraine.

Both sides have been intensifying their long-range attacks in recent months, leading to a jump in civilian deaths.

Kyiv has been firing record numbers of drones at Russia, while Moscow has been launching all-time high missile attacks.

Zelensky said Ukraine had hit oil refineries in the Bashkortostan and Yaroslavl regions, about 700 kilometers from the front.

The attacks were "strengthening the prospects for diplomacy," Zelensky said.

"Russia must choose peace," he added, posting a video from Russian social media of black smoke rising above an oil facility.

Mikhail Yevrayev, governor of the Yaroslavl region, north of Moscow where Zelensky said a refinery had been hit, said 92 drones had been downed there in what he called the "most massive" attack on the region since the start of the conflict.

In a statement on the Russian social media platform Max, Yevrayev said air defense and electronic warfare units repelled the large-scale attack.

"Falling drone debris caused fires at three private homes, shattered windows in several apartment buildings and damaged vehicles," he said, adding that information on possible casualties was still being clarified.

Ukrainian media reported that the Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery in Yaroslavl caught fire following the overnight drone attack.

In the Tver region, drone debris fell on a Wildberries logistics complex, damaging its facade, acting Governor Igor Korolev said in a separate statement.

According to him, no injuries were reported, while several outbuildings at a gardening cooperative in the Kalinin district were also damaged.

Russia's defense ministry said earlier it had downed 605 Ukrainian drones in the night.

Russian missile attacks on Kyiv a day earlier had killed at least 17 people and destroyed warehouses belonging to a number of retailers in what was widely seen as a direct response to Ukraine's campaign targeting Wildberries, widely dubbed "Russia's Amazon."

Kyiv was unable to down any of the missiles Russia fired, prompting urgent calls from Zelensky for air defense supplies.

Fresh Russian attacks overnight killed two people at the Lozova train station in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

A commercial vessel carrying Ukrainian wheat was also hit in the Black Sea by Russia, killing one person, the Odesa region governor said.

Ukraine’s General Staff, meanwhile, said Russia launched two Oniks anti-ship missiles, two Kh-31P anti-radiation missiles and 101 attack drones at Ukraine overnight.

Air defenses, electronic warfare units and other forces downed or suppressed 66 Russian drones while 29 attack drones and one Oniks missile reached their targets, it added.

The claims by both sides could not be independently verified.

More than four years after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diplomacy is at a standstill and the two countries are ramping up long-range strikes, causing a growing number of civilian casualties.