Drone Attack Hits Another Oil Depot Near Putin's Crimea Bridge

An oil depot located near the strategically vital Kerch Strait Bridge, which connects Russia with Crimea, was on fire early on Wednesday, a Russian official said.

Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of Russia's southern Krasnodar region, said on his Telegram channel that an oil storage tank had caught fire in the village of Volna, near the port of Taman, and that the blaze "has been classified as the highest rank of difficulty."

Volna is located close to the Kerch Strait Bridge, which is Russia's sole land link with the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula and a key supply route for Russia's forces amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. The latest blaze comes days after Russia blamed Ukraine for another fire at an oil depot in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

The fire started at around 2:30 a.m. Moscow time.

"A tank with petroleum products caught fire in Volna village of Temryuksky district," Kondratyev said. "According to preliminary information, there are no dead or injured."

He added: "Everything possible is being done so that the fire does not spread further."

Russia's state-run news agency Tass cited emergency services as saying the fire was the result of "the fall of a drone." Ukrainian officials haven't claimed responsibility for the fire. Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian foreign ministry for comment via email.

Videos of the fire quickly spread on Russian and Ukrainian social media on Wednesday, showing a huge blaze and large plumes of black smoke rising into the sky. Local news channel CHP Sevastopol said on Telegram that the fire was visible from the Kerch Strait Bridge.

"A video of a burning Tamanneftegaz terminal in Krasnodar region - it was allegedly attacked by a drone. Five fire trains are working to extinguish the fire," tweeted Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, sharing a 28-second video of the fire.

Gerashchenko suggested the blaze could be part of preparations by Ukraine for its upcoming offensive.

"Weakening the enemy's logistics is an important part of preparations for counteroffensive operations - military theory," Gerashchenko wrote. "As we can see, the intensity of strikes on oil depots and logistics (railway) is increasing. Resource weakening of Russian armed forces is taking place."

Gerashchenko added: "Russian citizens see Ukrainian drones even in stars and pigeons. Partisans hide in every forest."

Earlier this week, Oleksiy Arestovych, who served as Ukrainian presidential adviser until he resigned in January, said Kyiv's counteroffensive will target the Kerch Bridge.

Arestovych told the YouTube channel Feygin Live, hosted by lawyer and former Russian opposition politician Mark Feygin, that one of the goals of Ukraine's counteroffensive may be an operation in the south of the country that will seek to cut Russians off from the land corridor to Crimea, paving the way for Ukraine to recapture the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014.

"We will demolish the Crimean Bridge. All this is possible under certain conditions, we are currently arranging the conditions," Arestovych said.

Putin blamed Ukraine for an attack on the bridge in October 2022. Ukraine didn't claim responsibility for that strike.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's foreign ministry for comment via email.

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