Ukrainian drone strike hits key Russian oil port, at least one vessel hit

MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) -A Ukrainian drone attack struck one of Russia's main Black Sea oil ports on Sunday, causing a fire and damaging at least one ship, as Kyiv tries to undermine Russia's war effort by targeting its energy infrastructure.

Ukraine has for several months been striking Russian oil refineries, depots and pipelines in a bid to undermine the Russian economy.

Footage on Russian and Ukrainian Telegram news channels appeared to show a terminal and one tanker ablaze at night. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the timing or location of the images.

Russian authorities said two foreign vessels had been damaged in the attack on Tuapse, one of the biggest oil terminals on the Black Sea, sparking a fire.

"As a result of the drone attack on the port of Tuapse on the night of November 2, two foreign civilian ships were damaged," the emergency operational headquarters of the Krasnodar region said in a statement.

TERMINAL INFRASTRUCTURE DAMAGED

The operational headquarters said that there were no casualties among the crews of the ships and that all fires had been extinguished but that "the buildings and infrastructure of the terminal" had sustained damage.

Kyiv's General Staff said in a statement that its forces had struck infrastructure of the Tuapse oil refinery. An official from Ukraine's SBU domestic security service said five recorded drone strikes on an oil terminal had damaged an oil tanker, loading infrastructure and nearby port buildings.

The port is home to the Tuapse Black Sea oil terminal and an oil refinery controlled by Russia's biggest oil company Rosneft. Ukraine has targeted the refinery with several drone strikes this year.

Reuters was not immediately able to determine whether the terminal was operating after the attack.

The export-oriented Tuapse plant, which has a processing capacity of 240,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), produces naphtha, fuel oil, vacuum gasoil and high-sulphur diesel. It mainly supplies China, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday air defence units destroyed a total of 283 Ukrainian drones.

Kyiv says its drone strikes against Russian energy infrastructure are retaliation for Russian attacks on its power grid. Russia has been pounding the power and heat systems of Ukraine, arguing that such civil infrastructure is a legitimate target because it aids Ukraine's war effort.

Nearly 60,000 people were deprived of power supply after Russia's overnight air attack on Ukraine's frontline region of Zaporizhzhia, while two people were killed in the southern region of Odesa, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday.

In Russia, drone debris was found in five settlements in the Tuapse municipal district, damaging windows in some flats and houses. No injuries were reported, though the Tuapse railway station suffered some minor damage, the regional administration said.

The overnight attack forced the temporary closure of scores of Russian airports, chiefly in the country's south and west, for safety reasons, Russia's aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said on Telegram.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Maxim Rodionov in London and the Moscow and Kyiv bureaus; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Hugh Lawson, Peter Graff)