Ukrainian drone strike hits key Russian oil port

A Ukrainian drone attack damaged at least two foreign vessels and the oil terminal infrastructure at Russia's key Black Sea port of Tuapse on Sunday, as Kyiv tries to undermine Russia's war effort by targeting its energy infrastructure.

Ukraine has for several months been striking Russian oil refineries, depots and pipelines in a bid to undermine the Russian economy, and some media have reported that Western intelligence agencies have helped Kyiv with the strikes.

Russian authorities said two foreign vessels were damaged in the attack on Tuapse, one of the biggest oil terminals on the Black Sea, sparking a fire.

"As a result of the drone attack on the port of Tuapse on the night of November 2, two foreign civilian ships were damaged," the emergency operational headquarters of the Krasnodar region said in a statement.

Unverified footage on Russian and Ukrainian Telegram news channels appeared to show a terminal and a tanker ablaze at night. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

The operational headquarters said that there were no casualties among the crews of the ships and that all fires had been extinguished but that "the buildings and infrastructure of the terminal" had sustained damage.

Ukraine's forces carried out a drone attack on the Tuapse oil terminal, an official from Ukraine's SBU domestic security service said on Sunday. The official said five drone strikes had hit an oil tanker, loading infrastructure and nearby port buildings.

The port is home to the Tuapse Black Sea oil terminal and a Rosneft-controlled ROSN.MM oil refinery, which Ukraine has targeted with several drone strikes this year.

It was not immediately known if the terminal was operating after the attack, which the administration said damaged its buildings and other infrastructure.

The export-oriented Tuapse plant, which has a processing capacity of 240,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), produces naphtha, fuel oil, vacuum gasoil and high-sulphur diesel.

It mainly supplies China, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday air defence units destroyed a total of 283 Ukrainian drones. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about the attack.

Kyiv says its drone strikes against Russian energy infrastructure are retaliation for Russian attacks on its power grid. Russia has been pounding the power and heating infrastructure of Ukraine.

Nearly 60,000 people were deprived of power supply after Russia's overnight air attack on Ukraine's frontline region of Zaporizhzhia, while two people were killed in the southern region of Odesa, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday.

Drone debris was found in five settlements in the Tuapse municipal district, damaging windows in some flats and houses. No injuries were reported though the railway station in Tuapse suffered some minor damage, the regional administration said.

The overnight attack forced temporary closure of scores of Russian airports, chiefly in the country's south and west, for safety reasons, Russia's aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said on Telegram.