Drone attacks cut power, set fire on oil refinery

Russian drone attacks on the hometown of Ukraine’s leader have cut power to some 15,000 residents while Kyiv is blamed for a similar assault that set fire on an oil refinery in Volgograd.

Ukraine’s air force on Saturday said it downed nine out of 14 drones launched by Russia over southern and central regions overnight.

Kyiv said most of the drones were directed at energy facilities in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where thousands have been without power since Russian strikes on Friday.

The outages have mainly affected the main city of Krivyi Rig — the home town of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Ukraine destroyed nine enemy drones within the Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr regions,” the air force said.

Regional head Sergey Lysak said 15,000 people were without electricity in the city after the drone strikes.

The head of Kryvyi Rig, Oleksandr Vilkul, said energy companies will “introduce schedules of emergency shutdowns” in the city, its high-speed tram will stop running and that a part of some hospitals will switch to energy generators.

Ukraine’s energy ministry said it was working to restore critical infrastructure.

Vilkul said fires caused by the strikes affected “two boiler houses” in the city and said “some families were left without water supply.”

He reported “no deaths or injuries” in the strikes but damage to two private houses.

Meanwhile, a fire erupted at a major Russian oil refinery in the southwestern Volgograd region overnight after a drone attack blamed on Ukraine, the regional governor said Saturday.

“Last night, the air defense and electronic jamming repelled an attack by drones in the Volgograd region’s Kalachyovsky and Zakanalye districts,” governor Andrei Bocharov said on Telegram.

“A fire started at the Volgograd refinery after one of the downed drones fell,” he said, adding that the fire service had already brought the blaze under control by the start of the morning.

Drone strike left 15,000 residents of the city of Krivyi Rig without electricity.