In a sharp escalation of cross-border military strikes amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukrainian forces have carried out a new attack on an oil terminal located in Tuapse, a Russian city on the Black Sea coast, Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed Friday. This strike marks the fourth assault on Russian oil infrastructure in the Black Sea region in just over two weeks.
Ukraine’s top military body confirmed that explosions and a large fire broke out at the terminal site following the strike. Russian local authorities clarified that the blaze was triggered by an incoming Ukrainian drone, and noted that no fatalities or injuries have been reported from the incident.
Records of repeated attacks show this same Tuapse oil facility was targeted three times earlier this month, on April 16, April 20, and April 28. In a coincidence that underscores the pace of strikes in the region, Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar Krai which administers Tuapse, announced just 24 hours before Friday’s strike that crews had fully extinguished a fire at the city’s oil refinery from a previous attack.
The strike on Russian infrastructure came as Russian forces launched a wave of large-scale drone attacks across multiple regions of Ukraine Friday, causing civilian casualties and widespread damage to public infrastructure.
Serhii Nadal, mayor of Ternopil, a major city in western Ukraine, reported that Russia launched more than 50 drones at the city. Strikes hit local industrial sites and key public infrastructure, leaving at least 10 people wounded and cutting power to multiple residential neighborhoods, Nadal said.
In southern Ukraine’s Odesa region, overnight Russian drone strikes caused damage to two multi-story residential apartment buildings and local port infrastructure, local emergency management officials confirmed. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reported that one apartment in a 16-story residential building was completely destroyed by the strike, and the building’s roof caught fire. In a second nearby high-rise, flames engulfed the entire 12th floor.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a Telegram post Friday that the Odesa strikes left at least five people injured. He added that damage from overnight Russian attacks was also documented in two other Ukrainian regions: the central city of Kryvyi Rih, and the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian strikes hit critical railway infrastructure.
In his statement, Zelenskyy emphasized the scale of Russia’s recent aerial campaign, noting that Russian forces had carried out 210 total drone strikes against Ukraine in recent days, with roughly 140 of those strikes conducted using Iranian-made Shahed attack drones, the most commonly used loitering munition in Russia’s cross-border strikes. “Russia continues to attack our energy infrastructure, critical infrastructure, and civilian objects,” Zelenskyy wrote.