Massive fire seen as Ukraine hits Russian oil depots with a drone strike [Video]

Ukraine’s national security service said Wednesday that it had struck two Russian state-owned oil depots in the western Russian region of Smolensk. The Reuters news agency quoted a Ukrainian intelligence official as saying the drone strike had destroyed more than 26,000 cubic meters — slightly less than 1 million cubic feet — of fuel at the depots owned by Russia’s Rosneft energy corporation.

Unverified videos published on social media showed huge fires and columns of thick black smoke rising from what appeared to be two oil storage tanks at one of the facilities, which are west of Moscow near the country’s borders with Belarus and Ukraine. 

The governor of Russia’s Smolensk region, Vasily Anothkin, first announced the strike early Wednesday on social media, saying his “region was again targeted by Ukrainian drone attacks.”

Anothkin said no one was injured in the attack, but “fire did erupt on the civilian infrastructure.”