Ukraine says hit Crimea oil terminal, Russia claims gains

KIEV

A Ukrainian serviceman of the 126th brigade air-defense unit fires by a machine gun during the training in Kherson region, Ukraine, Oct. 4, 2024.

Kiev on Monday said that its forces had struck a large oil terminal overnight on the occupied Crimean peninsula as Moscow claimed the capture of another village in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine also reported that at least five civilians were killed on Monday by Russian attacks—including in a strike on a civilian ship in the port of Odesa—as well as in the east and the south of the country.

Kiev has ramped up strikes targeting Russia's energy sector in recent months, aiming to dent revenues used by Moscow to fund its invasion, now grinding through its third year.

"At night, a successful strike was carried out on the enemy's offshore oil terminal in temporarily occupied Feodosia, Crimea," the Ukrainian military said in a post on social media.

Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said a fire had broken out at an oil facility in the Black Sea port town of some 70,000 people and that there were no casualties.

The defense ministry said that 12 Ukrainian attack drones had been downed over the peninsula overnight, out of a total of 21 deployed by Kiev against Russian targets.

"The Feodosia terminal is the largest in Crimea in terms of transshipment of oil products, which were used, among other things, to meet the needs of the Russian occupation army," the Ukrainian military said, vowing to continue such attacks.

 Russia claims advances 

Ukraine insists the strikes are fair retaliation for Russian attacks on its own energy infrastructure that have plunged millions into darkness.

Russia's defense ministry, meanwhile, claimed the capture of a village in eastern Ukraine close to the strategically important city of Pokrovsk.

The defense ministry, in a briefing, said it captured the village of Grodivka, a settlement in the Donetsk region near Pokrovsk, as Russian troops close in on the key logistics hub.

The settlement with an estimated pre-war population of around 2,000 is the latest in a series of towns in the Donetsk region to have fallen to Russian forces, as they push towards Pokrovsk.

Last week, Ukraine's army said that it had withdrawn from the mining town of Vugledar, also in the Donetsk region, handing Russia one of its most significant territorial advances in weeks.

Further north in the Donetsk region, Ukraine said a Russian attack had killed one person and wounded seven—including children aged two and 13—in the city of Sloviansk.

 Odesa port attack 

It also said that a Russian ballistic missile had attacked a civilian cargo ship in the port of Odesa, killing one person, in the second such attack in recent days.

"The enemy hit a civilian ship flying the Palauan flag with a ballistic missile," Oleg Kiper, the head of the Odesa region, said.

"A 60-year-old Ukrainian, an employee of a private cargo handling company, was killed. Five other foreign nationals were injured... This is the second attack on a civilian vessel in Odesa region ports in the last few days."

Kiev earlier said that Russian attacks had killed three civilians overnight—two brothers aged 35 and 38 in the eastern region of Sumy and a 61-year-old woman in the southern Kherson region.

And in the city of Kherson, the governor said a Russian strike had wounded 19 people and damaged an educational facility and various residential buildings.

Russian forces also launched several missiles and dozens of drones overnight at Ukraine, the air force in Kiev said, with two missiles shot down over the capital and the third exploding near an airfield in the central Khmelnytsky region.

Authorities in Kiev said debris from the downed missiles had landed near a kindergarten.

Russian media company VGTRK, which operates the country's main state-run television channels, earlier on Monday said it had been targeted in an "unprecedented" hacker attack, claimed by Kiev.

"Despite attempts to interrupt broadcasting of federal TV channels and radio stations of the holding, everything is working in normal mode, there is no significant threat," state media reported.