KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces hit an oil terminal, a pipeline, two parked fighter jets and two ships in a series of attacks on Russian soil, officials said Monday.
The attacks are part of an ongoing campaign to disrupt the Russian war effort and sow fear behind the front lines, where outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to hold back Russia’s largest army after nearly four years of war.
The attacks also seek to undermine President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to portray Russia as negotiating from a position of military strength in US-led peace efforts, which have yet to make progress on key points.
The killing of a top Russian general by a car bomb in Moscow on Monday, with investigators suspecting that Ukraine was behind it, could be another example of Kyiv picking on surprise targets.
Ukrainian forces struck the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal, an ammunition depot and a launch site for attack drones inside Russian territory and Ukrainian territory under Russian control, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement on Monday.
A pipeline, two docks and two ships were damaged in the southern Krasnodar region, and a large fire broke out, the statement said, without specifying what kind of weapons were used in the attack.
It added that a Ukrainian-made missile also hit a temporary base for Russia’s 92nd River Boat Brigade in Olenivka, on the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
A separate strike targeted an ammunition depot in a Russian-controlled part of the Donetsk region, with the aim of slowing the Russian advance there, the General Staff said. A Russian launch site for attack drones was also hit.
Ukrainian partisans set fire to two Russian jet fighters in an operation Sunday evening at a base near Lipetsk, a city in western Russia, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said only that its forces shot down 41 Ukrainian drones overnight, three of them over the Krasnodar region.
Meanwhile, Russian forces continued to target Ukraine’s energy sector, with the aim of depriving civilians of heat and running water during the cold winter. Russia has tried to remove power in Ukraine throughout the war, in a tactic Ukraine refers to as a “winter of arms.”
The energy infrastructure around five regions were attacked during the night, said the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine.
Russia struck Ukraine with 86 drones of different types overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. Ukrainian forces stopped 58 of them, he said.
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