Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Ukrainian strikes hit an oil refinery in Ufa and a missile-component plant in Russia’s Penza region, both far from the front line.
The Ufa refinery, one of Russia’s biggest lubricant producers, was struck for a second time, Zelenskyy said. He put the distance at more than 1,300 kilometers from the front.
The Penza plant makes and assembles parts for the missiles Russia fires into Ukrainian cities, according to Zelenskyy, who said the site sits about 600 kilometers from the front.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses destroyed 179 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to TASS. The ministry put the window between 9 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. Wednesday, Moscow time.
The drones were downed over 17 Russian regions and territories, as well as the Black and Azov seas, TASS reported.
Neither side’s account could be independently verified. Russia did not immediately respond to the Ukrainian claims about Ufa or the Saky air base in Crimea.
The drone debris struck power lines and an unfinished building in the Penza region. No one got hurt. — Oleg Melnichenko, to TASS
Part of the M-5 Ural highway closed briefly because of the drone threat, then reopened, TASS reported.
TASS also carried Russian accounts of Ukrainian attacks in the Donetsk region. Ukrainian forces hit a bus depot in the Kalininsky district and destroyed five buses, Mayor Alexey Kulemzin said. In Gorlovka’s Nikitovsky district, a Ukrainian drone strike injured three ambulance workers, Mayor Ivan Prikhodko said.
Zelenskyy called the strikes a justified response to Russia’s war and pressed Moscow to stop fighting. He praised his troops’ long-range precision.
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