
Ukrainian drone attack sparks massive fire at Russian oil depot
More than 120 firefighters attempted to extinguish the blaze, sparked after debris from a downed drone struck a fuel tank, Krasnodar regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram on Sunday.
Advertisement
Videos on social media appear to show huge pillars of smoke billowing above the oil depot.
Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, temporarily stopped flights at Sochi's airport.
Further north, authorities in the Voronezh region reported four people were injured in another Ukrainian drone strike.
Russia's defence ministry said its air defences shot down 93 Ukrainian drones over Russia and the Black Sea overnight into Sunday.
Advertisement
Smoke rises after a Russian drone strike on Druzhkivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Saturday (Oleg Petrasiuk/Ukraine's 24th Mechanized Brigade/AP)
Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, a Russian missile strike hit a residential area in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the emergency services, injuring seven people.
The Ukrainian air force said on Sunday that Russia launched 76 drones and seven missiles against Ukraine. It said 60 drones and one missile were intercepted, but 16 others and six missiles hit targets across eight locations.
The reciprocal attacks came at the end of one of the deadliest weeks in Ukraine in recent months, after a Russian drone and missile attack on Thursday killed 31 people, including five children, and injured more than 150.
The continued attacks come after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline of August 8 for peace efforts to make progress.
Advertisement
He then said on Thursday that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine, and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Telegraph
44 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Russia issues warning to West as it pulls out of missile treaty
Russia has formerly pulled out of a treaty prohibiting the deployment of short and medium-range nuclear missiles, warning the West to 'expect further steps'. As missiles continued to rain down on Ukraine, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president, blamed Nato countries for their withdrawal from the Cold War-era agreement. Medvedev, who has been exchanging barbs on social media with Donald Trump, made his comments after Russia's foreign ministry said Moscow no longer considered itself bound by the moratorium on the deployment of short and medium-range nuclear missiles. 'The Russian foreign ministry's statement on the withdrawal of the moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is the result of Nato countries' anti-Russian policy,' Medvedev posted in English on X. 'This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps.' Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of Russia's powerful Security Council, did not elaborate. The US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019, citing Russian non-compliance. Russia later said it would not deploy such weapons provided that Washington did not do so. However, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, signalled last December that Moscow would respond to what he called 'destabilising actions' by the US and Nato. 'Since the situation is developing towards the actual deployment of US-made land-based medium and short-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian foreign ministry notes that the conditions for maintaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar weapons have disappeared,' the ministry said in a statement. The INF treaty, signed in 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev, the then Soviet leader and Ronald Reagan, the US president, eliminated an entire class of weapons – ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres (311 to 3,418 miles). Medvedev, seen initially in the West as a potential moderate and reformer, has become one of the most hawkish senior officials on foreign policy in Moscow. Mr Trump last Friday said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved to 'the appropriate regions' in response to remarks from Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries. Overnight, Russian strikes hit a railway station in eastern Ukraine, killing a mechanic and wounding four workers, the national rail company said. 'Russian terrorists inflicted a massive strike on the railway infrastructure of Lozova,' Ukrainian Railways said in a Telegram post. 'A duty mechanic of one of the units was killed, four more railway workers were wounded. All the wounded are receiving necessary medical care.' Several trains have been rerouted, it added. Lozova's mayor said two children were among the wounded and residential quarters had been damaged. 'Lozova has survived the most massive attack since the beginning of the war,' Sergiy Zelensky said in a Facebook post. Two people were also wounded in a separate Russian drone attack on Zaporizhzhia, the region's military administration said. Ukraine's air force meanwhile said air defence units had downed 29 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight in the north and east of the country. It comes as a deadline set by Mr Trump for Russia to take steps to ending the war in Ukraine or face unspecified new sanctions looms. Three rounds of peace talks in Istanbul have failed to make headway on a possible ceasefire, with the two sides appearing as far apart as ever.


Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Russia accuses UK of plotting 'false flag' to sink its ships
Russia is feared to be preparing false flag attacks on its shadow fleet of sea vessels in order to deter the West from further sanctioning them. According to reports from the SVR, Moscow's foreign intelligence service, is said to have claimed that the UK was plotting to attack the country's fleet of ships used to subvert sanctions. The SVR said that the attacks would be designed to look like accidents, causing significant environmental damage and allowing Britain and the rest of NATO to justify further actions against them. The Telegraph reported it claimed: 'British intelligence services are planning to use NATO allies to launch a mass raid on the "shadow fleet"; for this purpose, an ecological catastrophe in international waters is being prepared.' But experts said the report's publication raised concerns that Russia is preparing its own false flag operation, a scheme carried out by the Kremlin but designed to look like it has British origins. Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at RUSI, told the newspaper: 'One interpretation might be that the Russians are insuring themselves against something breaking down or sinking, in a way that creates a pretext for restricting [their movement across the ocean].' So far at least six tankers have suffered mysterious explosions since the start of the year. The suspicion has largely fallen on Ukraine, as all of the tankers were docked in Russian ports. Some of them were carrying Russian oil. It comes after the National Crime Agency (NCA) warned UK financial firms that Russian oil trading companies are utilising a complex network of companies with deliberately obscure ownership structures in order to evade sanctions. Britain has banned the maritime transportation of Russian oil as its energy exports are funding the war in Ukraine. In 2024, 30 per cent of Russia's federal budget came from oil and gas sales. But Russian oil trading companies are managing to circumvent sanctions to get Western cash which is continuing to fund the Russian state, investigators believe. One of the companies sanctioned last year used over 100 Shadow Fleet oil tankers, vessels which are usually over 15 years old which secretly carry Russian oil. To avoid detection, flags are regularly changed and the ship's automatic identification system is turned off to avoid its movements being tracked, while the oil is often transferred from one ship to another to obscure its origin before the shipment reaches its destination. Over 400 Shadow Fleet vessels have so far been sanctioned by the UK, EU, US and Canada. An NCA spokesman said: 'Today, the National Crime Agency has issued an alert to financial institutions and other members of the UK regulated sector in relation to the sale of Russian oil and gas through the use of Shadow Fleet vessels and front companies.' 'Sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine have had a significant impact on its ability to sell oil and gas it produces. However, in an effort to circumvent these controls, Russian oil trading companies are utilising a complex network of companies with deliberately obscure ownership structures to evade sanctions whilst accessing Western finance and professional services in order to continue to fund the Russian state.'


Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Two children among wounded in Russian attack on Ukraine's Kharkiv, officials say
KYIV, Aug 5 (Reuters) - One person was killed and 10 people, including two children, were wounded early on Tuesday in Russia's largest air attack on the Ukrainian town of Lozova since the war began, officials said. The "massive strike" damaged the train station and other infrastructure in the town, a transport hub in the Kharkiv region bordering Russia, state rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia said in a statement. Photos shared by emergency services appeared to show a damaged train and rubble covering a train platform. "Critical infrastructure, apartment buildings and private homes have been damaged ... Lozova has endured the largest attack since the beginning of the war," town council head Serhiy Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Two children were wounded in the attack that left parts of the region without power and water, he added. Ukrzaliznytsia said one of its employees died and four more were injured. Emergency services said 10 people in total were injured in the attack. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia struck civilian infrastructure in Lozova with more than 25 drones, damaging a depot and a station. Ukraine's air force downed 29 of 46 drones launched by Russia across the country overnight, according to its statement on Telegram. One ballistic missile and 17 drones struck various locations, it said. Reuters could not independently verify the reports of casualties and damage. There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.