Kyiv, Aug. 13 (SANA) Russia launched an overnight air attack on Ukraine’s key Danube grain port of Izmail, damaging infrastructure and causing fires, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, as Kyiv stepped up strikes on Russian oil facilities and President Volodymyr Zelensky called for more U.S. Patriot interceptor missiles.
Izmail, near the Romanian border in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, is a major hub for grain and commodity exports. Port authorities said the strikes damaged infrastructure and caused power outages in the southeastern part of the city.
The attack came a day after Ukraine struck Novorossiysk, a major grain shipping hub on Russia’s Black Sea coast.
In a separate incident, a Russian drone struck a passenger train in the Odesa region, killing the driver and his assistant, Ukrainian Railways Chief Executive Oleksandr Pertsovskyi said.
Zelensky told CNN on Wednesday that Ukraine needed at least 5% of the United States’ current stockpile of Patriot interceptor missiles to counter an increase in Russian ballistic missile attacks.
Kyiv is seeking additional PAC-3 interceptors, which are capable of intercepting ballistic missiles. Patriot supplies to Ukraine have declined as shipments have been diverted because of the war with Iran.
Ukraine steps up strikes on Russian oil infrastructure
Ukraine’s General Staff said Thursday that its forces had struck an oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, about 1,300 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, causing a fire. Kyiv said the facility supplied fuel to Russian forces.
Separately, an oil refinery in the Russian city of Orsk has halted operations after a Ukrainian drone attack and could remain shut for up to six months, Orenburg regional Governor Yevgeny Solntsev said.
Solntsev said critical infrastructure had been damaged and that sanctions could complicate repairs because the facility relies on imported equipment. He warned that the region may have to rely on fuel supplies from elsewhere.
Ukraine has intensified attacks on Russian oil refineries this year as part of a campaign aimed at disrupting fuel supplies and increasing the economic costs of the war.
The Orsk refinery, near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, has an annual processing capacity of six million tonnes of crude oil and produces gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products.
Russia, Ukraine exchange remains of war dead
Russia, meanwhile, handed over the remains of 261 Ukrainian soldiers to Kyiv and received the remains of 24 Russian war dead, Russia’s RBC news outlet reported Thursday, citing a senior lawmaker.
The two sides have conducted similar exchanges periodically since the war began.
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