Free Republic

Odessa (Ukraine) (AFP) – Air strikes rocked Ukraine's strategic Black Sea port of Odessa early Sunday, AFP reporters said, but there were no casualties, according to the army. The Russian defence ministry confirmed the strike. "This morning, high-precision sea and air-based missiles destroyed an oil refinery and three storage facilities for fuel and lubricants near the city of Odessa, from which fuel was supplied to a group of Ukrainian troops in the direction of Mykolaiv," it said. At least three huge columns of black smoke and flames rose into the sky over an industrial zone. The rocket attacks came as...

Russian attacks have destroyed an oil refinery in the central Poltava region and struck “critical infrastructure”, most likely oil facilities, near the key port city of Odesa, local officials said. Kremenchuk, 250km (150 miles) southeast of Kyiv along the Dnipro River, had Ukraine’s only fully functioning oil refinery. Vladyslav Nazarov, an officer of Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command, said on Telegram that there had been a missile attack on “critical infrastructure”. Two columns of thick, black smoke could be seen rising into a grey sky before spreading out over the city.