Tuapse refinery hit by Ukrainian drones

Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s Tuapse oil refinery on April 28, setting off a major fire and forcing evacuations in the Black Sea port city. (usnews.com) Krasnodar region governor Veniamin Kondratyev said the attack caused a “large-scale fire,” and Reuters reported it was the third strike on Tuapse in less than two weeks. (y94.com) (msn.com) The refinery is owned by Rosneft and has capacity of about 12 million metric tons a year, or roughly 240,000 barrels per day. Rosneft says Tuapse is its only refinery on the Black Sea coast. (rosneft.com) (arabnews.com) Reuters reported the plant had already halted production after an April 16 attack damaged the port and made shipments impossible. A later strike on April 20 also triggered a fire that took days to extinguish. (english.alarabiya.net) (msn.com) That puts Tuapse in the same category as other Russian energy sites Ukraine has targeted to disrupt refining, exports and fuel logistics rather than frontline positions alone. (rferl.org) (ukrinform.net)) President Vladimir Putin used the attack to argue that Ukraine had intensified strikes on civilian targets inside Russia. Moscow also said three civilians were killed in separate drone attacks in Belgorod region the same day. (yahoo.com) (xinhua.net) Kyiv has framed the campaign differently. Ukrinform reported on April 29 that Ukrainian long-range systems can now hit military targets roughly 1,750 kilometers away, more than 2.5 times their 2022 range. (ukrinform.net) President Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 29 that Ukraine had entered a new phase of long-range strikes and would keep extending that reach. Tuapse shows what that means in practice: repeated hits on a refinery-port complex far from the front. (ukrinform.net) (rferl.org)