Ukraine drone attack sparks fire in Russian resort city
Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of the Krasnodar region, said that drone debris had sparked a fire after hitting a fuel tank, adding that 127 firefighters were working on the scene.
Emergency officials reported that a fuel tank with a capacity of 2,000 cubic metres had caught fire in the coastal city, with footage showing pillars of smoke billowing from the facility.
Rosaviatsia, Russia's civil aviation authority, announced that flights had been halted at Sochi airport in response to the attack.
The Russian defence ministry said that its air defences had intercepted 93 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 60 over the Black Sea region.
Sochi, which hosted the 2014 Olympic Winter Games and was previously home to a dacha owned by Vladimir Putin, has rarely been targeted over the course of the war.
Andrey Prushunin, the mayor of Sochi, wrote on Telegram that 'a fuel tank caught fire at an oil depot' in the Adlersky city district of Sochi, adding: 'I express my gratitude to the air defence services for their professionalism.'
The attack on the Sochi refinery was one of a spate launched by Ukraine over the weekend.
On Saturday, Ukraine's military announced that it had struck facilities inside Russia, including an oil refinery in Ryazan and an oil storage facility in Voronezh.
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All aboard HMS Humbug for another round of ignorant bloviation, empty moralising and hypocrisy. Putin is Hitler, we are all Winston Churchill, if we don't stand up now there'll be Russian tanks in Bexley before we know what hit us, etc etc. We must grieve that the USA has wearied of financing and arming one of the stupidest, most pointless wars in human history. Let's all disapprove, from a safe distance. Here they all come, retired generals with growly voices, ancient doddering spooks who never came in from the Cold War, bloodthirsty Blairite veterans of Iraq. Beside them march politicians who somehow never learned any real history, but picked up something about Munich during their A-levels, and world affairs commentators who never ventured east of Frinton. They all want war without end in Ukraine. Many of them give off the rich, sickly perfume of high moral purity. 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Many of that country's own young men flee abroad, or bribe greedy officials for exemptions, or go into hiding lest they are dragged off to the front by snatch squads employed by their martial law state. For them, the claims that Ukraine is a vibrant western democracy sound pretty thin. So my first response to these jingoes is to say: 'If you are so keen, please go and fight in the war you like so much. Perhaps you might free some press-ganged young man to go home and be a husband and father, instead of cannon fodder'. But that would be a bit emotional. Let's try facts and logic instead. There is a very serious argument against this war. All grown-ups in world affairs are well aware of it. It was from the start a rash, cynical adventure. Ukraine has been used. You can only say the truth if you are a keen supporter of the conflict. For instance, the noted American Russia hawk, Robert Kagan, has correctly stated in the elite magazine Foreign Affairs that Russia was provoked into war. He did not say this justified the invasion, for it doesn't. He just stated as a fact that 'although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin's inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading'. Likewise Leon Panetta, former CIA chief and US Defence Secretary, admitted the Ukraine conflict was a proxy war between Russia. Nato and the USA. If I said this, I would be denounced as a 'Putin apologist'. But he can say it, and he did. Before Ukraine suddenly became independent in 1991, the West was not all that keen on its existence. In June 1990, Margaret Thatcher wanted to bolster Moscow in the region and was dismissive and chilly to Ukrainian nationalists. She briskly batted away a question about opening a British embassy in Kiev. This, she explained, was as likely as Britain opening an embassy in California or Quebec. 'I can see you are trying to get me involved in your politics!', she scolded her questioner. Those Tory war enthusiasts who claim to admire her now might ponder this. A year later, in August 1991, President George HW Bush refused even to meet campaigners for Ukrainian independence. He didn't like the look of them and said 'Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred'. He feared an outbreak of ancient tensions in Ukraine, which has a recent history of deep, dangerous ethnic passions, as all informed people know. It might be a bit early to say he was wrong. But the collapse of the USSR, following a failed KGB coup in Moscow, followed within weeks. Suddenly there was an independent Ukraine whether anyone liked it or not, within borders designed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And some high policy-makers in the USA wanted to use this new country as a battering-ram against Russia. In 1997, the former Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed that 'Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia'. He argued: 'However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.' This is the origin of the strange belief that ramshackle Russia, with its scrap-metal mercenary army and an economy the size of Italy is poised to march on Berlin, and then push Nato into the sea at Dunkirk. Donald Trump, whom I greatly dislike, at least has the sense to see that this has gone on long enough and is benefiting nobody at all. He wants to end it, partly because he knows his supporters are sick of America's forever wars and partly because he wants a Nobel Peace Prize If, to do so, he has to hold his nose and treat the sinister tyrant Vladimir Putin as an equal, so that he can bring peace, then he will not be the first democratic leader to do such a thing Ukraine, in its peaceful and surprisingly democratic period from 1991 to 2014, was a county increasingly divided between its fervent, nationalist west and its more neutral Moscow-oriented east. Its then government was not all that keen to be used as a proxy by Washington. But in February 2014, the legitimately elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by a violent ultra-nationalist mob. This was made up of the sort of people the British and American elite classes would normally call 'fascists'. The remnants of the country's parliament violated their own constitution to ratify this squalid putsch. Then the USA and Britain endorsed their lawless action. And that, not the invasion of 2022, was the start of the filthy, dismal war we now see. It has not worked out well for anyone, least of all for poor Ukraine. The vast new graveyards can be seen from space, Russian bombardment has mangled its key infrastructure as well as killing many innocents, and its cities are full of widows, orphans and maimed and disfigured men. For whose good? Who will stop this? Donald Trump, whom I greatly dislike, at least has the sense to see that this has gone on long enough and is benefiting nobody at all. He wants to end it, partly because he knows his supporters are sick of America's forever wars and partly because he wants a Nobel Peace Prize. If, to do so, he has to hold his nose and treat the sinister tyrant Vladimir Putin as an equal, so that he can bring peace, then he will not be the first democratic leader to do such a thing. JFK met the dubious Khrushchev, Nixon met the ghastly mass murderer Mao Zedong, Churchill drank brandy, deep into the night, with the unspeakable despot Stalin. You and I may not like this, but millions of us have lived peaceful prosperous lives because of squalid, despicable deals made by men of power.
