In a complex nighttime strike operation employing domestically developed jet-powered attack drones and Western precision-guided missiles, Ukrainian strike planners hit targets hundreds of kilometers apart inside the Russian Federation on Tuesday. They set an oil refinery on fire and – according to reports – damaged two military targets.

The best-documented attack was a wave of drones that hit and set fire to the Yartsevo oil depot in Russia’s western Smolensk region, some 320 kilometers north of probable launch sites inside Ukraine. Most accounts said the robot aircraft were jet-powered.

Russian oil base in Smolensk region burns fiercely following a Ukrainian drone strike during the early morning hours of Dec. 25. Images are from local social media, geo-confirmed to the Russian oil storage base Yartsevo. Official sources said local air defenses shot all incoming drones down but falling debris caused fires that fire-fighters quickly placed under control. Local social media contradicted that narrative.

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Local residents heard at least ten explosions following the 3 a.m. attack, while video recorded and uploaded to the internet showed images of at least two fuel reservoirs furiously burning at that location. The refinery had previously been hit in April.

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Firefighters responded to the scene but by midday had not extinguished the blaze, local news reports said. Some news feeds and social media comments called the fire “huge.”

The Ukrainian battle intelligence group CyberBoroshno on Tuesday published images geo-locating Ukraine’s attack drone strike against a Russian Smolensk region energy infrastructure site to the Yartsevo district oil refinery, a facility owned and operated by the major Russian energy conglomerate Rosnetft. The grid identified was: 55.0700325,32.6648087

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Warnings followed by attack

In Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Crimea peninsula, late on Monday evening, civil defense networks warned of approaching Ukrainian sea drones nearing the military port Sevastopol and, possibly, airborne drones flying in escort. Sevastopol is some 250 kilometers from the nearest likely Ukrainian drone launch site. The Russian official announcement advised civilians to remain in their homes.

Reports said that at least two Ukrainian long-range propeller-driven drones approached Russia-monitored air space near Sevastopol and were shot down by air defense forces. Russia-appointed occupation authority head Mikhail Razvozhayev claimed in a statement that “authorities have the situation under control.”

In the early hours of Tuesday, at 12:45 a.m., local residents reported sky flashes and contrails consistent with the launch of two Russian anti-aircraft missiles, possibly from the Omega Bey district of Sevastopol city. A report published by the pro-Ukraine military information site Krymsky Veter claimed a single missile fell into the sea rather than heading for its target, but that was unconfirmed.

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The missile launches were followed by anti-aircraft cannon firing tracers northward. Later reports identified at least one of the anti-aircraft weapons as a Pantsir system based in the Omega Bey neighborhood. A Pantsir is equipped with short-range missiles and an auto-cannon.

The Russian anti-aircraft missile and gunfire were interrupted, accounts said, by three, massive explosions. Most reports said the blasts seemed to be somewhere on land, but some reports said the explosions were at sea. Practically all accounts said the powerful detonations were felt across Sevastopol and set off car alarms and rattled windows and even building walls.  Pro-Ukraine military information feeds reported at least one of the blasts was a Ukrainian drone hitting and blowing up a Russian Buk anti-aircraft system (NATO reporting name “Gadfly”) deployed to north-west Sevastopol. There was no independent confirmation. An air raid warning was still in effect at 6 a.m. in Sevastopol, news reports said.

Unconfirmed image of a Ukrainian sea drone detonating in the proximity of Russian naval facilities in the military port Sevastopol, in the occupied Crimea peninsula.

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In Russia’s western Kursk region, the site of a Ukrainian invasion launched in August, news and social media information platforms reported that a protected Russian troop barracks in the vicinity of the town of Lgov was hit by multiple missiles shortly before midnight Monday-Tuesday and that dozens of troops inside were killed and injured.

Audio and video of the strikes contained sound consistent with the approach and detonation of a high-speed missile. Some Ukrainian military information platforms claimed Britain-manufactured Storm Shadow missiles, a weapon designed for high accuracy and penetration of protected targets, were used in the strike. Other sources suggested that US-made artillery rockets launched by the HIMARS system hit the Russian troops.

The independent Russian news agency Astra reported that Ukrainian forces fired a salvo of six Storm Shadow missiles and that eight military service members were killed and 22 were injured and hospitalized. One civilian was reportedly injured as well.

The voiceover of a commentator recording fires and damage purportedly caused in the Kursk strike said: “Our guys were in that bunker. A lot of them. I can’t see anything, but in short, it’s terrible. There’s a fire that’s started. All of our guys were in the bunker. A lot of people.”

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Practically all reports identified the targeted unit as Russia’s 810th Naval Infantry Brigade. That unit’s headquarters staff was reportedly badly reduced by a Dec. 25 Ukrainian HIMARS artillery rocket strike that left the formation’s vice commander and two other senior officers dead and more than a dozen others badly wounded.

Kursk region governor Boris Khinshteyn, a Kremlin appointee, in a statement on the Lgov attack said: “Emergency and utility services are working on the scene. I have the situation under control.” 

One Ukrainian missile hit a Russian eight-apartment two-story building, causing serious damage. An 86-year-old woman sought medical help because her legs were cut by shards of glass in her apartment, but she refused hospitalization, Khinsteyn said in a later statement. He called the loss of power and gas to the building “temporary” and mentioned no military losses.

A Russian Defense Ministry Tuesday morning statement made no comment on military-related damage or casualties from the strikes hitting Crimea, the Kursk region and the Smolensk region. That official account said that over the past 24 hours, air defense systems had “destroyed” 68 Ukrainian drones, including 25 in the Bryansk region, 17 in Ukraine’s Crimea region, 11 in the Krasnodar region and 10 in the Smolensk region.

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Wider partisan attacks

Aside from drone and missile strikes confirmed by multiple sources, the night also saw possible pro-Ukraine partisan attacks inside Russia. In Moscow, two locomotives burned and one was completely destroyed following as-yet unexplained fires which began, in both incidents, in the driver’s cabin. By morning, officials had made no statements regarding the possible attack.

The anti-Kremlin combat group Svoboda Rossiya in a Tuesday statement claimed its guerillas attacked power grid infrastructure in Russia’s Tver region, cutting off “all electricity.” Images published by the group showed a burning switch box on a high-power line tower. Local news and social media checked by Kyiv Post confirmed that Tver region customers were complaining about power outages.

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