By Anastasiia Malenko
KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine launched an overnight strike deep inside Russia that set fire to an oil depot that serves an air base for Russian nuclear bomber planes, the Ukrainian military said on Wednesday.
Russian regional governor Roman Busargin said the cities of Engels and Saratov, on opposite sides of the Volga river, had been subject to a "mass drone attack" and fire had broken out in Engels at an industrial site, which he did not name.
He later posted on Telegram that the blaze had spread and two firefighters had died trying to put it out. He declared a state of emergency in Engels, which has a population of some 200,000.
The Ukrainian military reported multiple explosions and a big fire at the Kristal oil depot, which it said provided fuel to the Engels-2 military airfield.
The strike "creates serious logistical problems for the strategic aviation of the Russian occupiers and significantly reduces their ability to strike at peaceful Ukrainian cities and civilian objects", it said in a statement on Telegram.
Ukraine deployed "long-range capabilities" in the attack, presidential adviser Oleksandr Kamyshin posted on X.
He used the hashtag #MadeInUkraine to signal that the weapons used were not supplied by the West.
Ukraine's general staff also said it had carried out a successful strike on a Russian military command post in Ukraine's Russian-occupied Donetsk region on Wednesday.
The facility has been used by Russia to coordinate attacks against Ukrainian troops and civilians, it said.
Separately, a Russian attack killed at least one person and injured three others on Wednesday in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional governor said.
CROSS-BORDER MISSILE STRIKES
In an escalation of the now nearly three-year-old war, Ukraine last year began firing U.S. ATACMS ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows into Russia. Russia responded by launching a new hypersonic missile, the Oreshnik, at Ukraine. The Kremlin has pledged to retaliate each time Ukraine fires long-range Western weapons into Russia.
Russian news reports also said the fire in Engels was at an oil facility. Videos and photos published on social media showed a large fire burning, sending thick clouds of smoke into the night sky. Reuters was able to verify the location in an industrial zone of Engels, based on satellite imagery.
"There are sufficient forces and resources to localise the fire," Busargin, the regional governor, said on Telegram.
Russia's defence ministry said in a statement that 11 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed overnight over the Saratov region, and 21 over other parts of Russia and the Azov Sea. It did not mention any damage.
Some Engels residents posted in a Telegram chat room that they had heard dozens of explosions. Authorities told people not to panic and instructed them not to take pictures or video of drones.
The Engels air base is located about 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow and hundreds of kilometres from the Ukrainian border. In December 2022, three Russian air force personnel were killed when a drone was shot down there.