Ukraine fires British Storm Shadow missiles at Russian energy facilities

Ukraine launched British Storm Shadow missiles and its domestically produced long-range drones to hit several Russian oil and gas facilities, Ukrainian military and security officials have said.

Ukraine has previously used the British-made missiles to attack Russian industrial targets that it says “help Moscow’s war.”

The Ukrainian General Staff said that the air force used Storm Shadow cruise missiles to strike the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia's Rostov region on Thursday.

"Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit," the General Staff said on the Telegram app.

It said the refinery was one of the biggest oil product suppliers in southern Russia and was supplying diesel and jet fuel to the Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.

There has been no comment from Russia on Ukraine’s claim yet.

Attacks on energy facilities

Ukraine's SBU security service said that the locally made long-range drones hit oil product tanks in the Russian port of Temryuk in the Krasnodar region and a gas processing plant in Orenburg in southwestern Russia.

The Orenburg gas processing plant, the largest facility of its kind in the world, is located about 1,400 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

In the Krasnodar region, Russian regional authorities said that two oil product tanks caught fire at the southern port of Temryuk after the drone attack.

Flames covered an area of about 2,000 square metres, authorities at the Krasnodar operational headquarters said on the Telegram app.

As the Russia-Ukraine war approaches its four-year mark and diplomatic efforts to end it have so far failed to produce any tangible results, both Kiev and Moscow have stepped up their drone and missile attacks on energy facilities.

The Ukrainian General Staff also said that Ukrainian troops hit a military airfield in the Russian city of Maikop in the Republic of Adygea in the North Caucasus region.