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Several Russian regions were targeted by a wave of Ukrainian drones early on March 13, Russia’s Defense Ministry said, as regional officials reported that a Rosneft oil refinery was struck in Ryazan a day after another drone seriously damaged a LUKoil refinery.
The ministry said Russian air defenses shot down 65 Ukrainian drones over six regions — 35 in Voronezh, 25 in Belgorod, eight in Bryansk and Kursk each, one in Leningrad, and one in the Ryazan region.
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Pavel Malkov, the governor of Ryazan, some 180 kilometers southeast Moscow, said the local Rosneft oil refinery was on fire as a result of a drone attack. There were also casualties, according to preliminary information, Malkov wrote on Telegram, without providing further details.
The Shot Telegram channel reported that three drones attacked the Rosneft subsidiary Ryazannefteprodukt, injuring two people.
In Belgorod, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said an apartment building was struck but there were no injuries, while according to TASS, the facade of the regional headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) was damaged and windows were broken.
A source in the Ukrainian Security Service told Reuters that three Russian oil refineries — in Ryazan, Kstovo, and Kirishi — were targeted by Ukrainian drones as Kyiv seeks to inflict as much damage as possible to Russia’s economy.
Ukrainian drones also targeted a Russian air base in Buturlinovka and a military airfield in the Voronezh region, the source told Reuters.
The March 13 attacks came a day after another sweeping wave of strikes on multiple targets in Russia that reportedly started fires at two major oil facilities.
The attacks damaged LUKoil’s NORSI refinery, Russia’s fourth-largest, in the Nizhny Novgorod region about 775 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and hit an oil depot in Oryol, 116 kilometers from Ukraine.
Also on March 12, the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Siberian Battalion, which consist of Russian citizens who have been fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the war, claimed to have launched cross-border attacks into Russia territory.
The Kremlin said Russian forces repelled the incursions and inflicted heavy losses on the armed groups. Neither claim could be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Russian air strikes killed at least two people and wounded several others on March 13 in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Sumy regions, officials said.
Two civilians were killed and 11 wounded in the eastern Donetsk region in the bombardment of a high-rise residential building in the city of Myrnohrad, regional Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
In the northeastern region of Sumy, a Russian drone attack on a five-story apartment building destroyed 30 apartments and caused a number of casualties, the region’s military administration said on Telegram.
Ten people were rescued from the rubble, eight of whom sustained injuries, it said.
With reporting by Reuters
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