A key oil facility erupted into flames this morning following a suspected drone strike by Ukraine inside Russia.
The attack hit a depot in Russia‘s Yartsevo district of the Smolensk region, which caught fire overnight on December 31, Russian authorities said.
Yartsevo district head Roman Zakharov said in a post on his Telegram channel: “A Ukrainian drone attack targeted a fuel and energy facility, resulting in fires.”
Zakharov’s claims have not been verified.
According to reports, emergency response teams have been dispatched to the scene to tackle the fires.
The Smolensk region shares borders with various regions of Russia and its ally Belarus.
Several Telegram monitoring channels claimed multiple explosions were heard in the Smolensk region and the western Russian city of Oryol.
Authorities are yet to provide further details on the extent of the damage or casualties.
It comes after video footage showed the moment a railway on the outskirts of Moscow appeared to be rocked by a huge explosion, destroying freight train cars used by the Russians for logistics, according to Ukrainian Security Officials.
The blast occurred in the settlement of Voskresensk, Moscow Region, in the early hours of December 27 according to the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (GUR), which also shared the footage.
“The aggressor state was using them to provide logistics for the Russian occupation army,” the GUR statement claimed.
“The scale of the damage inflicted on the aggressor is being established,” it added.
The authenticity of that clip also couldn’t be verified, and Moscow doesn’t appear to have commented on the claims.
It comes after Russia launched a barrage of attacks against Ukraine’s power facilities in recent days. However, Ukraine has said it intercepted a significant number of the missiles and drones.
Russian and Ukrainian forces are also still in a bitter battle around the Russian border region of Kursk, where Moscow has sent thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim territory taken in a surprise offensive by Ukraine in August.