Ukraine fires Storm Shadows, drones to hit Russia's oil, gas facilities

KYIV, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine launched British Storm Shadow missiles and its domestically produced long-range drones to hit several Russian oil and gas facilities, Ukrainian military and security officials said on Thursday.

Ukraine has previously used the British-made missiles to attack Russian industrial targets that it says help Moscow's war.

The Ukrainian General Staff said that the air force used Storm Shadow cruise missiles to strike the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia's Rostov region.

"Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit," the General Staff said on the Telegram app on Thursday.

It said the refinery was one of the biggest oil product suppliers in southern Russia and was supplying diesel and jet fuel to the Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.

Ukraine's SBU security service said that the locally made long-range drones hit oil product tanks in the Russian port of Temryuk in the Krasnodar region and a gas processing plant in Orenburg in southwestern Russia.

The Orenburg gas processing plant, the largest facility of its kind in the world, is located about 1,400 km (about 870 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

In the Krasnodar region, Russian regional authorities said that two oil product tanks caught fire at the southern port of Temryuk after the drone attack.

Flames covered an area of about 2,000 square metres, authorities at the Krasnodar operational headquarters said on the Telegram app.

As Russia's war in Ukraine approaches its four-year mark and diplomatic efforts to end it have so far failed to produce any tangible results, both Kyiv and Moscow have stepped up their drone and missile attacks on energy facilities.

Kyiv has increased its strikes on Russia's oil refineries and other energy infrastructure since August as it seeks to cut Moscow's oil revenues, a key source of funding for its war effort.

The Ukrainian General Staff also said that Ukrainian troops hit a military airfield in the Russian city of Maikop in the republic of Adygea in the North Caucasus region.

(Reporting by Olena Harmash; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)