Russia says repelled drones targeting oil refinery

MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday said it had destroyed three drones targeting an oil refinery in the southern border region of Bryansk, as Ukraine pursues its counteroffensive against Russian forces.

“Russian air defence systems repelled an overnight attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on the ‘Druzhba’ oil refinery in the district of Novozybkov,” the governor of the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, said.

“Thanks to the professionalism of our military… three aerial drones were destroyed.”

He did not mention any damage.

Drone attacks have multiplied in recent months, with Kyiv and Moscow claiming to repel some several times a week.

On Russian soil, oil facilities — essential for supplying the troops — appear to be the priority targets of the drone attacks.

The Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, which Kyiv repeatedly said it plans to take back, is also regularly targeted.

Russian forces downed nine drones over the peninsula, its Moscow-installed governor Sergei Aksyonov said on Thursday.

Last week, a drone hit a residential building in Russia’s southern city of Voronezh and injured two people.

This was the first report of drones in Voronezh, a city of some one million people that lies in a region deeper inside Russia than the border regions Russia usually reports as being targeted.