Ukraine Drills Russian Oil Hub, While Russia Hauls Gas in Civilian Cars to Front
Ukraine struck a major Russian oil depot near a key Black Sea port, causing massive explosions, while Russia has resorted to using civilian cars to deliver gasoline to its frontline troops, revealing severe logistical strain.
A series of explosions rocked an oil storage facility near the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, local sources report. Witnesses counted about 50 blasts before a massive fire erupted in the mountains above the port [168218]. The facility, known as the Grushovaya depot, is connected to Novorossiysk’s loading berths by pipelines that run through tunnels under a nearby mountain ridge, stretching about 12 kilometers from the depot to the sea [168218]. Novorossiysk is Russia’s main oil export hub on the Black Sea, and the strike targeted stored crude destined for tanker loading [168218].
Separately, a Ukrainian drone strike overnight set fire to vacuum distillation units at a key Rosneft refinery in Ryazan, the plant that supplies gasoline, diesel, and jet kerosene to the Moscow region [149502]. Another fire broke out at an oil refinery in the Russian city of Syzran after a drone attack hit the Samara region, with the plant’s processing unit burning [154166]. That facility supplies fuel to Russia’s armed forces [154166].
In a sign of improvised logistics, a convoy of civilian sedans packed with jerrycans set out from Kizilyurt in Dagestan to supply Russian troops in occupied Tokmak, according to a video filmed by the soldiers themselves [169074]. The footage shows the vehicles carrying gasoline in unmarked cars, suggesting an improvised logistics effort to keep frontline units fueled [169074].