Ukraine strikes Russian refineries, Crimea oil depot, Baltic Sea port

April 18 (Reuters) - Ukrainian drones struck ‌a handful of ​Russia's oil ​facilities overnight, including two oil refineries in the Samara region, an oil depot in Crimea and a Baltic Sea port that exports petroleum products, ‌Russian local governors and a Ukrainian army official said on Saturday. Kyiv's troops ⁠have in recent weeks stepped up attacks on Russian oil depots and refineries - key sources of revenue for ‌Moscow's war budget - sometimes targeting sites ‌thousands of kilometres from Ukraine's borders. In the Leningrad region, which surrounds St Petersburg and borders Finland, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said a fire had been extinguished at the Vysotsk ​port, which houses a terminal operated by Lukoil handling exports of fuel oil, naphtha, diesel and vacuum gas oil.

In a statement on the Telegram messaging app acknowledging the ⁠port attack, Ukraine's drone forces commander, Robert Brovdi, said Ukrainian forces also attacked oil refineries in the cities of ​Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in the Samara region. Both sites have been repeatedly struck in the course of Russia's war in Ukraine.

"Make Russian Oil Great ​Again," he wrote sarcastically.

Brovdi also criticised the U.S. decision ‌to renew a waiver allowing countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil at sea. Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, the Samara regional governor, said industrial targets came under ⁠attack. He did not name the facilities.

On the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, the Moscow-backed governor of Sevastopol said that 22 drones had been downed, with incidents of damage across the city, including a fire ⁠at a fuel tank. Ukraine's Brovdi said Kyiv had targeted an oil depot.

Ukraine's SBU security service said ​it also struck two Russian landing ships and a warship based on the peninsula. According to Brovdi, a series of recent strikes on Russia's oil logistics at Primorsk, Ust-Luga, Sheskharis and Tuapse reduced total daily ‌oil shipments by about 880,000 barrels. Reuters could not immediately verify the figure.

Separately, authorities in the southern Krasnodar region said on Saturday ‌that a fire at an oil depot in Tikhoretsk, and another at an oil terminal at ⁠the Black Sea port of Tuapse, ‌which had burned since Thursday, ​have been extinguished. Both fires, authorities have said, were caused by Ukrainian drone strikes.

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Louise Heavens and ‌Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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