Repairs will be slow and costly, pro-Russian bloggers complain; Ukraine’s president says Iran war is benefiting Moscow. What we know on day 1,503
Ukrainian drones attacked the Sheskharis oil terminal at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in Russia’s Krasnodar region over Sunday night, according to online channels monitoring the war. Footage posted online claimed to show a large fire at the port. Strikes on oil facilities in other regions were also reported. Russia’s military said early on Monday that air defence units downed 148 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period and nearly half a million households were blacked out by air attacks. On Sunday evening drones killed one person in Russia’s border region of Belgorod and hit an apartment building in Russia’s Novorossiysk, Russian authorities claimed.
It came as the Institute for the Study of War assessed that Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure over the past two weeks, “focusing on the Russian Baltic Sea port and oil infrastructure in Leningrad oblast critical to Russian oil exports”. A claimed strike on Primorsk overnight on 4-5 April was the third against the port within the last two weeks, said the ISW. “The Ukrainian general staff reported on April 5 that Ukrainian forces also struck the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod oblast (roughly 1,000km from Primorsk) overnight, starting a fire.” Geolocated footage showed Russian air defences responding, while fires showed up on Nasa’s Firms global satellite fire monitoring system and the oblast governor acknowledged the attacks and damage to oil company facilities, said the ISW.
