Ukrainian drones set a fuel depot ablaze in southern Russia's Krasnodar Krai overnight, the latest blow in Kyiv's campaign against the supply lines behind Moscow's war, according to Russian regional officials and Ukrainian monitors. Russian authorities blamed falling drone debris, while Ukrainian and Russian channels say the site was struck directly. The same night, drones also reached occupied Crimea and the approaches to Moscow.
What burned
The target was the Poltavskaya oil depot in the Krasnoarmeysky district, the Krasnodar Krai operational headquarters stated. Officials there once again claimed falling drone debris sparked the blaze—Moscow's standard phrasing for hits on its energy sites. Residents filmed three large fires and thick black smoke, footage the Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ posted.
The depot is not a refinery. It takes in fuel from regional plants and feeds filling stations across part of Krasnodar Krai and the neighboring Republic of Adygea. Russian channel Astra counts about 28 storage tanks at the site. The depot sits roughly 80 km west of Krasnodar and about 385 km from the front. District head Aleksandr Kharitonov stated that a road linking Poltavskaya to the hamlet of Trudobelikovsky was closed.
A hub in a region already dry
Ukraine has hit the Poltavskaya depot before. Drones struck it on 16 June, setting off a major fire, and the site feeds networks that began running dry in early June, when Krasnodar followed occupied Crimea into shortage. By Astra's count, the overnight raid was the third on the depot this month.
A wider night of strikes
The depot was one target among several. Ukrainian drones hit occupied Crimea again, targeting power infrastructure. Near Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed air defenses downed two drones heading for the capital.
The fuel crisis behind the strikes
The strikes land on an oil sector already under strain. Ukrainian drones have idled refineries across central Russia, and gasoline output now covers only about 80% of domestic demand, Reuters reported. Authorities in 25 Russian regions have restricted fuel sales, from the European part of the country to Siberia.
Read also
-
Oil storage site burns in Russia’s Rostov Oblast after Ukrainian strike on key fuel logistics hub behind occupied territory
-
Russia’s biggest oil company stopped selling gasoline in canisters nationwide after Ukraine’s strikes. It blames “seasonal demand”
-
Ukraine strikes Moscow’s largest oil refinery, 15 kilometers from the Kremlin
