Ukrainian soldiers fire D-30 artillery in the direction of Toretsk, Ukraine, on July 30, 2024.
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Ukraine’s military said on Saturday it had attacked Russia’s Morozovsk airfield and several oil depots and fuel storage facilities in three Russian regions overnight.
The attack on the airfield hit an ammunition depot where Russian forces store guided aerial bombs among other equipment, the military said.
“Russian combat aircraft must be destroyed wherever possible, in an effective way. It is also quite fair to attack Russian airfields. And we need this joint solution with our partners – a security solution,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging application.
The Ukrainian president has repeatedly asked his Western allies for permission to use weapons for long-range attacks on Russia, in addition to attacking military targets close to the border.
He said on Saturday that Russian forces had used more than 600 guided aerial bombs to attack Ukraine in the past week.
Attacks on oil depots and fuel and lubricant storage facilities in Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions burned at least two oil tanks, according to Ukrainian military reports.
In Russia, local officials reported that a tank at a fuel storage depot in the Kamensky district of the Rostov region caught fire due to a drone attack.
The regional governor of Belgorod also said that a Ukrainian-launched drone caused a fire at an oil storage depot there, adding that the fire was put out and no one was injured.
Ukraine has dramatically stepped up its use of long-range drones this year to attack Russian oil facilities, trying to destroy sites that have crippled Russian forces and the country’s economy in the 29-month-old invasion of Moscow.
