Ukraine said Thursday it had attacked an air base in southern Russia hundreds of kilometres from the front line, sparking a fire, while Russia said it had evacuated residents.
The head of Ukraine’s centre for countering disinformation, Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, said “a Russian military air base was attacked in Maikop”, the main city in Russia’s small North Caucasus republic of Adygeya.
Kovalenko said on Telegram that a “fuel and lubricants depot was destroyed” at the base 410 kilometres (250 miles) from the front line, which “continues to burn”.
Russia’s military said it had shot down a barrage of 92 Ukrainian drones overnight, most of them over the country’s southwest, including the Krasnodar region that borders Adygeya.
The attack came as a fire also continued to burn at a fuel terminal in Russian-annexed Crimea following an attack claimed by Ukraine early this week.
Kovalenko posted a video showing puffs of smoke rising above rooftops and a long trail of dark smoke along the horizon.
The head of Adygeya, Murat Kumpilov, said that “last night a suburb of Maikop came under attack from enemy drones”, naming the village of Rodnikovy, which has around 1,000 residents.
As a result, “security measures have been heightened”, Maikop’s mayor Gennady Mitrofanov said.
The residents “are safe. They have all been evacuated in an organised way to a temporary shelter. About 30 people are still there now, the rest have gone to stay with relatives”, Mitrofanov wrote on Telegram.
Russia has a military air base called Khanskaya near Maikop, and the area around the base was sealed off to the public last year, according to media.
Russian-appointed authorities in Moscow-annexed Crimea meanwhile said Thursday emergency services were still working to extinguish a fire at an oil terminal that Ukraine claimed to have hit with drones.
“The liquidation of the consequences of the emergency situation continues,” Feodosia mayor Igor Tkachenko said, with the area still closed to people and traffic.
Ukraine said it struck the oil terminal in the port of Feodosia overnight from Sunday to Monday, as it seeks to target Russia’s energy and fuel infrastructure.
Russia has reported a raging fire at the facility and the evacuation of more than 1,000 local residents, but has not said it was caused by a Ukrainian attack.
A video shot by state news agency TASS Wednesday showed a huge cloud of black smoke still billowing into the sky above the terminal, while authorities have said that air pollution does not exceed safety standards.
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