(Bloomberg) — Drone strikes forced a small independent refinery in southern Russia to halt operations on Sunday while Moscow’s troops kept up “intense” fighting in northeast Ukraine after recent advances, as well as along the eastern front.
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Kremlin forces are currently pressing the most near Vovchansk, Starytsya, Lyptsi in the Kharkiv border region, as well as near Siversk and Pokrovsk in Donetsk, Ukraine’s general staff said.
Russia started what’s been described as a limited offensive operation north of Kharkiv on May 10. Moscow’s troops are pressing separately on the strategically-important town of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s east.
Russian troops also struck a northern suburb of Ukraine’s Kharkiv on Sunday morning with an Iskander ballistic missile, killing at least five and injuring 16. Regional governor Oleh Synyehubov said a “civilian” object in the town of Mala Danylivka was the target.
“Russians have launched a double strike on the object, applying again the tactics of ‘double blows’ aimed at destroying peaceful civilians, doctors and emergency workers,” he wrote on Telegram.
Several other locations were also targeted on Sunday, including the city of Kharkiv, which faced an explosion near a soccer stadium after a guided bomb was dropped, according to Synyehubov. Casualties are expected to rise.
Earlier, Russia’s defense ministry said it shot down a total of 103 Ukrainian drones, a tactical ballistic missile, 12 US-made ATACMS missiles and various other projectiles in the past 24 hours.
Six drones struck the Slavyansk facility overnight with no casualties reported, the local administration said in a statement on its website.
UAVs from Ukraine targeted the refinery, according to a person with knowledge of the operation who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The refinery halted its operations to conduct checks and it isn’t yet clear when it can resume running, RBC reported, citing the head of security at Slavyansk-Eko, the refinery’s operator.
The facility, which processes 4 million tons of crude per year, or about 80,000 barrels a day, was previously a target of drone attacks in March and April.
The US has criticized Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries as creating a risk to crude oil prices and urged Kyiv to focus on military targets instead.
“Those attacks could have a knock-on effect in terms of the global energy situation,” US Defense Secretarly Lloyd Austin said last week at a Senate committee hearing. “Ukraine is better served in going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight.”
Read more: Russia’s Crude Exports Fall Back as Flows From the Baltic Shrink
—With assistance from Volodymyr Verbianyi.
(Updates with Kharkiv-area attacks from first paragraph.)
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