Updated with Ukrainian army statement.
Russia’s Defense Ministery said Friday that its air defense forces downed 114 drones launched overnight by Ukraine, with at least one person killed in the mass wave of attacks.
“Russian anti-aerial defense systems intercepted and destroyed 70 drones over Crimea and the Black Sea, 43 drones over the Krasnodar region and one drone over Volgograd,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
In the southern Krasnodar region, a worker at a heating station was killed when a drone struck the facility near the Yuzhny train station, Governor Venyamin Kondratyev said on Telegram.
Several administrative buildings at an oil refinery were also damaged in the Severski district, he said.
Ukraine’s armed forces later claimed responsibility for the strikes on Friday, saying it launched drones against “the Afipskiy, Ilskiy, Krasnodar and Astrakhan oil refineries,” as well as a radio and intelligence center in southern Russia.
The Ukrainian military added that one of its drones targeted a “preparation and storage area” in the Krasnodar region, resulting in a “series of explosions and a fire with subsequent detonation.”
Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has ramped up its attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, including strikes on oil depots and refineries, as it tries to hit the Kremlin’s wallet and reduce the availability of fuel for Moscow’s war machine.
Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes aimed at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have crippled the country’s electricity generation capacity and have forced Kyiv to impose rolling blackouts and import electricity from the EU.
