Russia, meanwhile, continued its strikes on Ukraine, firing scores of drones at Ukrainian energy infrastructure overnight and attacking targets in Ukraine’s Donbas in the east.
Ukraine has carried out multiple strikes against Russian targets Monday, damaging an oil terminal, pipeline, two fighter jets and two vessels, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s General Staff said that forces struck the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal, an ammunition storage facility and a drone launch site in Russian and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
In Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, a pipeline, two docks and two ships were damaged, and a major fire was sparked, the statement said. Ukrainian officials did not specify which weapons systems were deployed in the operation.
A Ukrainian-manufactured missile struck a temporary installation housing Russia’s 92nd River Boat Brigade in Olenivka on the occupied Crimean peninsula, the General Staff added. Another strike targeted an ammunition depot in a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, intended to slow Russian advances there, according to the statement. A Russian drone launch facility was also damaged.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said only that its forces intercepted multiple Ukrainian drones overnight, including three over the Krasnodar region.
The operations are part of Ukraine’s continuing strategy to disrupt Russian military capabilities and strike targets behind enemy lines, as Moscow continues its nearly four-year-long war.
The attacks also aim to challenge President Vladimir Putin’s claims of Russian troops holding a strong military position during US-led peace negotiations, which have yet to achieve breakthroughs on major issues.
Russia has continued its war of attrition, targeting settlements in the Donbas which Moscow has partly occupied and which remains key to its maximalist demands to end the war.
In the Kostyantynivka direction in the Donetsk region, Russian forces launched 27 attacks in the past 24 hours around several settlements, Ukraine’s General Staff reported on Monday.
The front-line city, which once had a pre-war population of 67,000, has been reduced to approximately 4,300 remaining residents, including children whose parents refuse to evacuate.
Russian aerial bombs have destroyed entire neighborhoods, whilst constant drone surveillance forces pedestrians to shelter under trees and roofs, according to Ukrainian military reports.
Ukrainian defenses have so far prevented Russian forces from advancing deeper into the city.
