Russian Refinery Video Shows Another Large Blaze After Series of Strikes

An oil facility in Russia suspended operations following a drone attack as video shared on social media purportedly shows the dramatic moment of impact.

In recent months, there has been an uptick in strikes on oil facilities across a large area of Russian territory that are blamed on Ukraine, although Kyiv often does not claim direct responsibility.

Telegram users posted a nighttime clip of the latest apparent strike on Friday, this time at the Slavyansk oil facility in the Krasnodar region, where the Crimean bridge that links Russia with the peninsula it has occupied since 2014 is located.

Eduard Trudnev, a director at the company EKO, which operates the plant, said that part of the site had to suspend operations after the attack by 10 drones that caused a large fire, and some "hidden damage," state news agency Tass reported.

Roman Siniagovskyi, head of the Slavyansk administrative district, said the distillation column was damaged during the strike. A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters that Kyiv was behind the attacks, which also included targeting the Ilsky refinery and the Kushchevsk military airfield in the same region.

Meanwhile, Russia's defense ministry said that 66 Ukrainian drones were destroyed and intercepted by air defense systems.

It comes after Ukraine's SBU hit two oil depots in the Smolensk Oblast on April 24, destroying 26,000 cubic meters of fuel.

Washington has reportedly urged Ukraine to stop its attacks on Russia's oil refineries for fear of Russian retaliation and a spike in global oil prices, which could be politically sensitive for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign.

However, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky told The Washington Post in March that his country has the right to use its own weapons for self-defense.

"The U.S. among others, has urged Ukraine not to target any Russian energy infrastructure, in part out of fears of how both the market and the Russian state will react," Markus Korhonen, senior associate at geopolitical and cyber risk consultancy S-RM told Newsweek. However, so far, "the strikes on refineries are limiting refined petroleum product exports, but not Russian exports of crude oil."

These refineries are of value to the global market because they process crude oil into various petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Russia in turn has conducted mass missile strikes on energy facilities across Ukraine, including attacks on Friday in the Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv regions.

"Moscow has long been a predator of Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Shots fired back at Russia's energy systems have been in retaliation and have landed quite impressively," James Hill, CEO of MCF Energy told Newsweek.

"Much of this conflict is likely more related to controlling the energy resources within Ukraine as the focus of Russia has been in the eastern, more energy-rich areas," he said.