Moscow, May 1 (EFE).- Ukraine carried out its fourth consecutive attack on Friday on the Tuapse oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai situated on the Black Sea, causing a fire, less than 24 hours after firefighters managed to extinguish the flames set off by another attack on Tuesday.
«A Kyiv regime drone attack caused a fire at the Tuapse sea terminal,» local authorities reported on Telegram.
They added that the incident did not result in any casualties and that emergency services were working at the scene.
«The total number of personnel and equipment involved is 790 people and 48 pieces of equipment,» they said, adding that a total of 85 people had been evacuated due to the fire.
«A total of 13,333 cubic meters of fuel oil, a stone-fuel oil mixture, and a water-fuel oil mixture have been recovered and removed from the three work sites,» the authorities said.
After the attack large columns of black smoke rose over the town, according to social media reports.
Russia’s defense Ministry reported on Friday the shooting down of 141 Ukrainian drones in eight regions and over the Black and Azov seas.
Friday’s attack is the fourth since mid-April. The other three took place on Apr. 16, 20, and 28.
The situation led Russian President Vladimir Putin to take action and urgently send Russia’s Emergency Minister Alexander Kurenkov to the Krasnodar region to directly oversee the situation.
The repeated Ukrainian attacks have not only caused damage to the facility but also triggered a major fuel spill in the Black Sea of over 10,000 square meters, threatening to become an ecological catastrophe.
The environmental situation in the city has deteriorated with the fall of rain contaminated with oil, a high concentration of ash in the air, while the levels of xylene and benzene in the air exceed the norm by two to three times.
Meanwhile, two teenagers died on Friday in the Russian border region of Belgorod after the motorcycle they were traveling in was hit by a Ukrainian drone, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
«A tragedy occurred in the Volokonovsky district. A Ukrainian drone deliberately attacked a motorbike with two male teenagers aged 18 and 15. The teens died of injuries at the scene,» he wrote on Max messenger.
Gladkov also expressed his condolences to their families and friends.
The Russian border regions of Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk are subject to daily attacks from both long-range Ukrainian drones and smaller aerial devices such as FVP drones, which cause civilian casualties.EFE
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