Ukraine war briefing: Strikes on three Russian oil refineries and sanctioned ship

Summary

Power cut to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant; meal queues in Crimea where Ukrainian strikes have cut fuel and power supplies. What we know on day 1,621 Ukrainian drones struck three oil refineries in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan , Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday. The refineries “process millions of tonnes of oil each year” and are located nearly 1,600km (994 miles) from Ukraine, Ukraine’s president said. The Russian online news outlet Astra reported Saturday that a Ukrainian drone set on fire an oil refinery in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan. A sanctioned Russian container ship, the Yanina, sank in the Black Sea after being hit by Ukrainian drones, Zelenskyy said, listing the ship as among “facilities that sustain the war effort”. Russia’s state nuclear energy company, Rosatom, whose shipping subsidiary FESCO operates the vessel, claimed the ship was carrying “civilian goods” such as frozen food and construction materials. The ⁠International Atomic Energy ⁠Agency (IAEA) ⁠said on ​Saturday that Ukraine’s ⁠ Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant ⁠lost ​off-site ‌power ‌for nearly two hours – the 23rd ‌time it has happened since the full-scale Russian invasion. The plant is illegally occupied by Russia and not operating, but needs power supplied from outside to power cooling systems that maintain the safety of its nuclear materials. Ukraine’s campaign to cut off illegally occupied Crimea from Russia has led to people having to queue in the streets for hot meals due to power cuts , Reuters reports. It caught up with residents waiting in the town of Massandra for food being cooked in huge pots. Standing beside boiling vats of buckwheat, later to be added to plates of reheated tinned beef, Massandra town administration head Oksana Madyud said her workers were serving roughly 200 people per day, “as under the current circumstances not everyone has the means to cook hot food on electric ​hobs”. Ukraine says it is “bringing the war back home to ‌Russia” by striking deep inside the country, as well as hitting territory the invader controls and has sought to populate with Russian immigrants . Continue reading...

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