Ukraine reportedly strikes oil terminal in occupied Crimea
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Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated.
Ukraine's military reportedly struck an oil terminal in occupied Crimea overnight on June 21, Telegram media channels reported, citing resident accounts.
Photos and videos posted to social media purport to show a fire at the oil terminal in the city of Kerch. Thick smoke was seen rising from the area of the port.
The Kyiv Independent cannot immediately verify the reports. Ukraine's military has not yet commented on the attack.
The full extent of the damage was not immediately clear. While the weaponry used in the attack was not immediately clear, Kyiv's forces regularly target with peninsula with drones.
The strikes came amid a wider reported Ukrainian attack on the peninsula with explosions reported in Simferopol, Yevpatoria, and Sevastopol.
In recent months, Crimea has become the primary focus of Ukraine's effective "middle strike" campaign — using mid-range drones to hit Russian targets at operational depth behind the front, typically defined as between 25 and 200 kilometers (15 and 124 miles) from the front lines.
Kyiv has set its sights on targeting the energy facilities amid an ongoing fuel shortages in the region caused by Ukrainian strikes. At the beginning of June, Russian proxy authorities implement the use of "fuel vouchers" across occupied Crimea, as well as set limits to the amount of gasoline residents of the peninsula can purchase.
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian forces hit four gas compressors in occupied Crimea and an oil refinery in the Siberian city of Tyumen as Kyiv continues its campaign against Russia's energy sector to throttle Moscow's war machine.
Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedoov said on June 17 that Ukraine's drone campaign is turning the peninsula "into an island," as Kyiv attempts to isolate Crimea from the rest of Russia with strikes on supply chains.
