The fire, with an area of around 1000m², should only be brought under control in the evening. Sixty firefighters are mobilized in this region annexed by Russia.
A major fire broke out on Saturday at an oil depot in Sevastopol, the home port of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in annexed Crimea, after a drone attack, local authorities said.
“A fire is in progress in an oil depot in the bay of Kazatchia (…). According to initial information, it was caused by a drone attack”, wrote on Telegram the governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvojayev.
He points out that “no one was injured”, adding that sixty firefighters were dispatched to the scene to fight the fire. The latter rages over an area of approximately 1000 m² and should only be brought under control in the evening.
Four oil tanks on fire
“The situation is under control”, assured on Telegram Mikhail Razvojayev, affirming that “civilian infrastructures are not threatened”.
Quoted by the state-run Ria Novosti news agency, he then told reporters that a total of four oil tanks were damaged in the attack and “burned out”.
Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, has repeatedly been the target of aerial and naval drone attacks.
In mid-April, the authorities announced the cancellation of the celebrations of May 1 and 9 (the official date of the end of the Second World War in Russia) on the peninsula, citing “security problems”.
