A fire in the oil reserves in preparation for the counterattack

News

by Isabelle Kane

April 30, 2023 | 3:11 p.m

The huge fire that broke out at one of the oil reserves in Russian-occupied Sevastopol on Saturday was an attack on Russian logistics and part of Ukraine’s “preparations” for a major counterattack.

Russia’s operations in Crimea have been undermined in the offensive, a military official said Sunday as the Ukrainian military puts together a hotly anticipated spring offensive.

“This action is preparation for a large-scale, large-scale offensive that everyone is expecting,” Natalia Homenyuk, spokeswoman for the Southern Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said. For Ukraineska Pravda.

Mikhail Razvogaev, the Moscow-appointed governor of the port city of Sevastopol, posted videos and photos of a huge black cloud of smoke rising above the flames to his Telegram channel on Saturday morning.

The head of the illegal Russian occupation government in Sevastopol later claimed that a drone attack caused a large-scale fire in the Kozacha Bay oil reserves.

A fuel tank on fire near Manganari Brothers Street in Kozacha Bay area. According to preliminary information, the fire was caused by a drone strike.

Razovugayev said that the fire was considered the most dangerous in terms of the difficulty of controlling the huge flames.

He later wrote on Telegram that a drone managed to cause the huge fire, which was put out by Saturday evening.

Experts on the scene determined that only one drone made it to the facility, while the wreckage of a second plane was found on the beach near the station.

After the fire, the families of the Russian military began evacuating citizens from the occupied peninsula. This was reported by the Kyiv Independent newspaper.

Andriy Yusov, a Ukrainian military intelligence official, said more than 10 oil tanks destined for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet had been destroyed in Sevastopol.

However, Yusov did not claim that Ukraine was responsible for Saturday’s eruption, but said the eruption was “God’s punishment” for Friday’s Russian missile and drone attacks across several Ukrainian cities.

Those attacks resulted in the killing of at least 25 people, six of whom were children.

Razovugayev said no one was injured in the fire and that the attack would not affect the fuel supply in Sevastopol.

The day before, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that Ukraine’s preparations for the expected counterattack were “coming to an end” with the army completing its training with weapons provided by Ukraine’s Western allies.

“The equipment has been announced, equipped and partially delivered. There is equipment on which the training programs are in their final stage. The crews will arrive (in Ukraine) with it when the time and place are determined,” Reznikov said during a press conference on Friday.

“But let’s put it this way: we are ready at a high rate,” he said.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine takes the decision on when and where to launch the counterattack.

Ukraine has been counterattacking for months, hoping that retaking its territory, including Crimea, which Russia has illegally occupied since 2014, will soon end the war.