Authorities in Russia’s Bashkortostan region said drones were repelled overnight close to major oil refineries that previously came under attack several times last year.
The unmanned vehicles were downed near the plants in Ufa, Radiy Khabirov, the regional head, said Saturday on Telegram. Two craft fell on a building that was undergoing construction work and emergency services extinguished a resultant fire, he said.
The energy giant Rosneft PJSC’s Bashneft unit has three oil processing facilities in the city with a combined processing capacity of 23.5 million tons a year. The facility is located more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) east of Moscow and about 1,750 km northeast of Kyiv.
Ukraine said last year it had attacked plants in the region, which also hosts Gazprom PJSC’s Neftekhim Salavat petrochemical facility, as it stepped up drone strikes energy infrastructure deep inside Russia. There’s been no comment from Kyiv so far on the latest incidents.
With the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine now in its fifth year, the Russian Defense Ministry said 283 drones had been shot down overnight across 15 regions. Ukraine’s military said it had intercepted 148 of 154 drones overnight.
US and Ukrainian negotiators will hold talks on Saturday as Kyiv seeks to restart peace negotiations that have been thrown off course by the conflict in Iran. The discussions will be held in Miami, Reuters reported.
Ukraine’s team will discuss a potential drone deal with the US, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday, as Kyiv tries to leverage its experience with UAV warfare.
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