As of: January 24, 2024, 11:47 a.m
By: Denise Dörries
Comments
Press
Split
During the war, the Ukrainian armed forces rely on air strikes on Russian territory - thereby revealing the enemy's weaknesses.
Klintsy - Drone strikes appear to be the new strategy of the Ukrainian armed forces in the war against Russia to weaken energy and military infrastructure.
Just a few days ago they launched an airstrike over the Russian border town of Klintsy, probably one of the harshest airstrikes in this area in the Ukraine war so far.
Residents of the town in Russia's western Bryansk Oblast saw lightning flashes in the night sky on Wednesday evening, Ukrainian weekly
Kyiv Post
reported .
Local officials gave the all-clear to residents and explained that a drone launched by Ukraine did not pose a threat because it had been successfully blocked and destroyed by the Russian Air Force.
But the result of the air raid, a major fire in an oil storage facility, apparently could not yet be foreseen.
After drone attack in the Ukraine war: Russian border town is fighting a major fire
In the first official confirmation from Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that "a single Ukrainian drone" had been shot down by the Russian air force over the border town.
There was no mention of damage or fires in this initial report.
Ukrainian armed forces have launched an airstrike on an oil depot in the Russian city of Klintsy.
The result was a major fire because the fuel containers burned.
© IMAGO/Russia Emergencies Ministry
Two days after the attack, residents of the city shared on social media that the oil depot was burning.
Images posted on Telegram channels make it clear that the fire was anything but small and that the Russian company Rosneft's fuel warehouse in Klintsy burned.
Local media also reacted quickly and published images of the burning Rosneft depot.
The almost 50 meter high flames and dark, oily clouds of smoke are said to have been visible from kilometers away.
Fire in Russian oil storage facility: Photos and videos of the Ukraine war banned
Defense Ministry spokesmen continued to claim, even after initial reports of a possible major fire, that the Ukrainian drone had been shot down and that this action only caused a small fire.
The flames are under control.
Some residents of the border town of Klintsy questioned the statements of government spokespersons under Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, saying they were observing a different scenario from their apartments and houses.
They continued to comment on social media and post photos of the event.
In doing so, the residents may have violated Russian laws that prohibit unauthorized publication of images of the Ukraine war on social media.
Some of the captions and comments make the extent of the fire clear: "It's getting bigger!", and "Terrible!" Moscow's attempts to suppress content related to the Ukraine war on social media are complicated by the border town's population (63,000). ) and the location of the burning oil depot next to a railway line makes it difficult, reports the
Kyiv Post
.
After the flood of images and comments on the Internet, the Russian authorities also admitted that the fire was “not yet completely under control”.
Subsequent reports confirmed that four oil storage tanks were burning.
One of them had apparently exploded and there were another five fuel containers just a few meters away from the local flames, which further exacerbated the dangerous situation.
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Ukrainian attack sets fire to oil base in Russian border town: people evacuated from houses
Russian authorities announced on Friday evening that the fire had spread to a serious fire.
They also reported that the fire was started by a single Ukrainian drone.
Although this was repelled, it still managed to drop explosives on the oil base.
Shortly before midnight, news came from local authorities that civil protection had classified the Klinzy fire in category one, i.e. the most serious classification.
32 people who lived near the tank farm were evacuated from their homes.
The fire was finally extinguished on Sunday, around 68 hours after the Ukrainian air strike.
This news was announced in a statement by Vadim Uvarkin, head of the regional emergency management agency.
Explosions and fires: Russian airspace is an “open target”
In addition to the major fire in Klintsy, news of further Ukrainian air strikes has also emerged in recent days.
Over the weekend, for example, two explosions occurred at the Ust-Luga terminal, a large Russian gas export facility about 170 kilometers west of St. Petersburg.
Fires broke out here too.
A spokesman for Ukraine's national security service told the
Kyiv Post
that the Baltic Sea port facility "crucial for military operations" has been temporarily disabled.
According to Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat, a problem that makes air attacks possible is the lack of Russian national air defense.
This is very thinly spread and quickly becomes vulnerable, he said in an interview with the Ukrainian magazine
Focus.
He also called much of Russian airspace an “open target” that Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles could invade at will.
A
BBC
report on Ust-Luga also makes this clear and quotes Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, who criticized Ukraine for the attack: “The Kiev regime continues to show its bestial face.” (Denise Dörries)