Ukrainian air attacks knocked out power to parts of the southwestern Kursk region overnight, officials said Thursday, while drone strikes reportedly ignited a fire at one of the country’s largest oil refineries in the Ryazan region.
More than 16,000 residents in the border districts of Glushkovsky, Rylsky and Korenevsky were left without electricity after several substations were hit, Kursk region Governor Alexander Khinshtein said.
He said crews were working to restore service but that the full extent of the damage was still being assessed. Khinshtein did not specify whether the facilities were struck by drones or missiles.
The three districts impacted by the outage have a combined population of around 65,000.
Further east, residents of Ryazan and nearby towns southeast of Moscow reported hearing a series of explosions overnight.
Ryazan region Governor Pavel Malkov said debris from downed drones caused a fire at an unspecified industrial site.
A video published by Telegram news channels showed what was said to be flames rising near the city of Ryazan. Unconfirmed reports suggested the blaze broke out at the Ryazan oil refinery, which has been struck at least eight times this year.
The refinery, owned by Rosneft, processes around 17 million tons of crude oil annually.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses had shot down 16 Ukrainian drones over the Ryazan region overnight. It said 65 drones overall had been downed across the country, though none were reported in the Kursk region.
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