A new fire broke out on Friday in southwestern Russia, near Ukraine, at an oil refinery that was attacked with a drone the day before, local rescue services said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
The fire that affected an area of 60 m2 occurred at an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, and was quickly controlled, said the local office of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, quoted by the Interfax agency.
“The refinery workers were evacuated. No one was hurt,” she stressed.
According to the official TASS agency, citing a source from the rescue services, the fire was caused by a new drone attack.
The oil refinery had been the target of a drone strike on Thursday, according to local authorities, starting a fire in one of the oil facility’s tanks that was quickly put out.
These incidents add to a series of recent drone strikes denounced by the Kremlin, including one it described as an attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
Last Wednesday. Russian authorities accused Ukraine of attempting to attack the Kremlin with two drones overnight in an attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin. Then they said that the United States was behind the attack. Both kyiv and Washington denied that accusation.
“Tonight the Kiev regime tried to hit the residence of the President of the Russian Federation with unmanned aerial vehicles,” the Kremlin said in a statement posted on its website.
The Kremlin dismissed the alleged attempted attack as a “terrorist act” and claimed that Russian military and security forces had disabled the drones before they could strike.
The drones and their fragments nevertheless fell into the Kremlin compound, causing no casualties or material damage, the Kremlin said. A video of the episode was broadcast by Ukrainian media and showed the drone exploding over the Russian presidential residence.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that Putin was not in the Kremlin at the time and was working from his Novo-Ogaryovo residence.
The Kremlin added that Putin was safe and that his agenda had not changed. Shortly after, he released photos of Putin meeting with the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin.
The official Tass news agency quoted the statement as saying the Kremlin regarded the event as a deliberate attempt on Putin’s life ahead of the Victory Day Russia celebrates on May 9.
The Presidency warned that Russia “reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it deems appropriate.”
The Kremlin did not present any evidence of the reported incident and its statement included few details.
For its part, Ukraine denied any involvement in the alleged attack.
“Ukraine has nothing to do with the drone strikes against the Kremlin,” said Mikhailo Podoliak, a presidential adviser. “Ukraine does not attack the Kremlin because it does not solve any military problem to begin with,” he added.
Along the same lines, the United States said it was taking Russia’s statements with great caution.
“I saw the information. I cannot validate it, we don’t know,” said the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, at an event in Washington. “I would take anything coming out of the Kremlin very carefully,” he added.
(With information from AFP)