RIGA, Latvia — Ukrainian shelling hit part of a Russian oil terminal complex close to the Ukrainian border, Russian officials said Saturday, in an apparent continuation of an unacknowledged campaign by Kyiv to conduct strikes on Russian soil.
Logistics buildings at an oil terminal in Zhecha, 28 miles from Russia’s border with Ukraine, were damaged by two shells, Russia’s state-owned RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz.
Bogomaz also said that Russian air defense had prevented a Ukrainian aircraft from flying over the Bryansk region, of which Zhecha is a part.
Russian officials have reported a flurry of attacks in the regions that border Ukraine over the last week, a possible measure of Ukraine’s increased ability to project firepower across the border. Ukrainian policymakers have not taken responsibility for the strikes, but they have in effect winked at them. One adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday blamed them on “karma.”
A photograph from the oil terminal showed a two-story white building with parts of its siding and walls blown off. A second one showed a crater from an apparent shell impact in bare soil.
The ongoing attacks have unnerved Russian residents, who are now facing some of the same insecurity that their military has inflicted on Ukrainians for more than two months.
( The photo is of an Oil Depot in Bryansk in Russia reportedly bombed by Ukraine.)
