Drone crashes into oil depot in Russia’s Stavropol Region

Vladimir Vladimirov, the local governor of Stavropol in southern Russia, said that a drone had crashed on an oil storage depot.

This was the second suspected Ukrainian strike in a row on Russian energy and fuel targets. It followed a period of seven weeks after a fuel station in Tula, Russia was attacked on September 10.

Vladimirov, on Telegram, said that there were no injuries in the incident at Svetlograd Oil Depot.

Baza Telegram, a channel close to Russia's Security Services, has posted a CCTV footage purportingly showing the attack at the oil depot. The video showed at least one fuel tank being quickly engulfed in a fireball.

A drone attack by Ukraine on Thursday targeted several fuel and energy installations in the central Russian region Bashkortostan. Bashneft is a major oil firm controlled by Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft.

Bashneft is a refinery operator in the region. It plays a major role in Russia's infrastructure for energy.

The Financial Times had reported that Ukraine and Russia were in early stage talks about possibly stopping airstrikes against each other's power plants. The Kremlin has dismissed the report.

Russia has labelled such attacks as terrorism. Ukraine, who has increased drone strikes against Russian energy facilities at the beginning of this year, said that it was retaliating for attacks made on its energy infrastructure.

In comments made to Life Media channel this week, Andrei Kartapolov said that there was no talk about stopping the attacks.

He said, "We will not spare anyone."

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said that Russia knocked down over half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. She said that the EU aims to restore 2,5 GW of capacity - about 15% of Ukraine's energy needs - through proposed EU funded repairs. (Reporting and Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Philippa Fletcher).

(source: Reuters)