Ukraine says hit oil facility in Crimea

KIEV

Ukraine said on Monday its forces had struck an oil terminal overnight on the Crimean peninsula, seized by Moscow in 2014, in Kiev's latest attack on Russian-controlled energy facilities.

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 depot in the Black Sea port town of some 70,000 people and that there were no casualties.

The Russian Defense Ministry meanwhile said that 12 Ukrainian attack drones had been downed over the peninsula overnight, of a total of 21 deployed by Kiev.

"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.

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

Separately, Ukrainian authorities said three civilians had been killed in overnight Russian attacks, two brothers aged 35 and 38 in the eastern region of Sumy and a 61-year-old woman in the southern Kherson region.

Russian forces 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 Khmelnytskyi region.

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