Ukrainian Drone Attack Sparks Fire at Sheskharis Oil Terminal in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Region

A Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at the Sheskharis oil terminal and depot in Russia’s Krasnodar region, local officials said Saturday, after falling drone debris sparked the blaze in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk.

AP reported that Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck the Sheskharis oil terminal overnight, and it said the facility provides shipment of oil and oil products for export and is involved in meeting the needs of the Russian army.

ANSA

AP also said the General Staff wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had also hit a tanker in the Black Sea belonging to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet,” while Russian officials said the drone debris injured two people.

NBC News reported that falling debris from drones triggered a fire at an oil terminal in Novorossiysk and that two people were injured, while Ukraine’s military said it had hit Russia’s Sheskharis Black Sea oil terminal and nearby Grushova oil depot.

The Moscow Times added that Novorossiysk mayor Andrey Kravchenko wrote on Telegram that “As a result of falling UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) debris, a fire broke out at the oil depot,” and said several technical and administrative buildings caught fire.

A separate Ukrainian drone strike on a student dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine drove a sharp dispute over responsibility after heated U.N. debate, with NBC News saying the death toll rose to 16 and that most victims were young women.

NBC News said Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military to prepare options for retaliation after Moscow accused Kyiv of what it described as a deliberate drone strike on a college in the town of Starobilsk, and it quoted Putin saying there were no military facilities in the area.

AP News

AP reported that the death toll from a Ukrainian drone strike overnight into Friday on a college dormitory building in Starobilsk rose to 18, and it said 60 people were wounded, citing Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations.

At a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting called at Russia’s request, AP said Ukrainian Ambassador Andrii Melnyk denied his Russian counterpart’s accusations of war crimes, calling them a “pure propaganda show” and asserting that the May 22 operations “exclusively targeted the Russian war machine.”

NBC News described the scene in Starobilsk with a crane working to remove rubble from a yawning gap in the building, and it said five people remained trapped under the rubble.

In the wake of the Starobilsk dormitory strike, AP said Putin denounced the attack as a “crime” and ordered the military to submit its proposals for retaliation, while NBC News said Putin ordered his military to prepare options for retaliation against Ukraine on Friday.

AP reported that at the U.N. Security Council emergency meeting, Ukrainian Ambassador Andrii Melnyk denied war-crimes accusations and said the May 22 operations “exclusively targeted the Russian war machine,” while NBC News said Ukraine’s military denied responsibility and said it had struck an elite drone command unit in the area.

NBC News said several countries called for access to the site and that U.N. officials decried all attacks on civilians, recalling a Russian missile attack on a U.N. warehouse in Ukraine this week that had killed two workers and destroyed $1 million worth of aid.

AP linked the drone attacks to a broader pattern, saying Ukraine has expanded its mid- and long-range strike capabilities and that attacks on Russian oil assets that fund the invasion have become almost daily occurrences.

In parallel, the Kremlin’s counter-narrative and the drone war’s reach were framed in The Moscow Times’ account of Russia’s air defenses, which said Russia’s defence ministry intercepted 348 drones in total from Ukraine overnight, as Ukraine regularly struck within Russian territory.