Russia strikes oil refinery and fuel depot targets – Russian MoD
Chris Partridge
BBC News
Russia says it used what it called high-precision air and ground weapons to destroy oil refinery and fuel storage depot targets in Ukraine.
Moscow’s ministry of defence said technological facilities intended to supply Ukraine’s military in the eastern Donbas region were hit in Kremenchuk and Lysychansk.
And the Russians have also been targeting Ukraine’s military hardware, they say.
In the Donetsk part of Donbas. missiles are said to have hit 155mm M777 howitzers.
Russian surface-to-air missiles have claimed a Ukrainian Su-25 air-to-ground attack aircraft – along with an Mi-24 attack helicopter in approximately the same area, Moscow says.
And other attacks are said to have destroyed a Ukrainian Buk-M1 (SA-11) medium-range surface-to-air missile site in Luhansk province.
Ukraine’s Buk-M1 and long-range S-300 units, while effective, are old Soviet-era systems.
Kyiv has made numerous appeals to the West for advanced air defences to shoot down Russian aircraft and cruise missiles.
However, no Western air defence systems were announced in the $1bn (£818m) military package from the United States earlier this week.
The war surgeon teaching front-line Ukrainian medics
Renowned British war surgeon David Nott has been in Ukraine, treating victims of the Russian invasion and training Ukrainian surgeons in the finer details of conflict-related surgery.
At a hospital in the east of the country, well within range of Russian rockets, he calmly carries out a complicated skin graft, helping to save the leg of a woman who suffered catastrophic injuries in a Russian shelling attack. Midway through the procedure, he turns to his assistant – a Ukrainian surgeon called Ivan and says: “Here, you do it.”
For Prof Nott, one of the world’s most experienced trauma surgeons, this is the culmination of a week-long trip to Ukraine, during which he and his team will have trained dozens of local doctors.
He has operated under fire in front-line situations around the world – from Syria to Yemen, Gaza to South Sudan and now in Ukraine.
This is his second trip to the country since the Russian invasion at the end of February. This time he is not just operating on victims of war, but aiming to pass on some of his immense depth of knowledge and surgical experience.
“I know what it’s like to be under fire. I know what it’s like to be in an operating theatre which is being shelled,” he says.
“You’re trying to do your best to try and save the life of the patient in front of you. But what we can do here is train people and I think we will have trained 70 surgeons in six days.”
Read more about Prof Nott’s story.
