Ukraine says it attacked oil depot in Russia’s Rostov region

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(Reuters) -The Ukrainian military said on Monday its forces attacked and set ablaze an oil depot in Russia’s southern Rostov region used to supply Russian forces in occupied parts of Ukraine.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said the military’s special operations units, in conjunction with rocket forces and artillery, had hit the Atlas plant in the Rostov region, not far from Ukraine’s eastern border.

“A strike by our forces in the area of the target has been confirmed,” the General Staff said in a statement on Telegram. “A fire has been observed. The results of the strike are being clarified.”

Reuters could not independently verify the report. The Russian defence ministry did not immediately reply to Reuters’ request for comment.

Rostov Governor Yuri Slyusar said earlier on Monday that a Ukrainian drone attack the previous night sparked a fire at an ‘industrial enterprise’ in the Kamensky district of the region, but he did not name the enterprise.

The fire had been extinguished by Monday morning, Slyusar said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. The Russian defence ministry said on Telegram that it had destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones over the Rostov region during the night to Monday morning.

The Ukrainian statement said the facility was used to provide fuel and lubricants to Russian units operating in Russian-occupied parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions on the war’s eastern front.

Ukrainian forces have been engaged in cross-border attacks, including energy industry targets, which the General Staff said was aimed at curbing Russia’s economic potential to proceed with the more than three-year-old war in Ukraine.

(Writing by Ron Popeski and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Lincoln Feast.)