(Reuters) -A Ukrainian drone attack damaged and set ablaze a tanker and infrastructure at a major oil terminal in Russia’s key Black Sea port of Tuapse overnight, authorities in the southern region of Krasnodar said on Sunday.
The attack on the southern outlet for Russia’s crude and refined products came a day after traders told Reuters shipments from the seaport would rise in November, threatening knock-on effects for export flows.
“In the port of Tuapse, fragments of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) fell on an oil tanker, damaging the deck superstructure,” the administration said on the Telegram messaging app.
“A fire broke out on the vessel. The crew were evacuated.”
The port is home to the Tuapse Black Sea oil terminal and a Rosneft-controlled oil refinery, which Ukraine has targeted with several drone strikes this year.
It was not immediately known if the terminal was operating after the attack, which the administration said damaged its buildings and other infrastructure.
Unofficial Russian and Ukrainian Telegram news channels posted images that appeared to show a terminal and a tanker ablaze at night, reporting several fires burning in the port’s vicinity. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and the scale of the attack was not clear.
Kyiv has stepped up its strikes on Russian refineries, depots and pipelines in recent months to strain fuel supplies, disrupt military logistics and raise wartime costs, a campaign it calls retaliation for Russian attacks on its power grid.
Falling drone debris also damaged an apartment building in the village of Sosnovyi, just outside Tuapse. No injuries were reported though the railway station in Tuapse suffered some minor damage, the regional administration said.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Clarence Fernandez.)
