Several hours after a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian oil tanker in the Black Sea, Russian missiles hit buildings of Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer Motor Sich, a company “of strategic importance”, on Saturday evening.
“A new Russian missile attack took place against our country… They hit Motor Sich and our Khmelnytsky region,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address.
The Ukrainian state took control of the maker of aircraft and helicopter engines in November 2022, along with other “strategically important” companies, to help the war effort. The group’s headquarters are in Zaporijjia (south), a region partially occupied by Russian forces.
It was not immediately known whether the Russian strikes had hit the Motor Sich headquarters, but the governor of this region, Yuri Malachko, had indicated earlier that the Russian attack had targeted an area on the outskirts of Motor Sich. town and caused a fire.
The Khmelnytsky region in western Ukraine, hundreds of kilometers from the front, is regularly targeted by Russian strikes and is home to a major Ukrainian military airfield.
The Russian attack comes after a Ukrainian offensive overnight from Friday to Saturday against a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait. This briefly halted traffic on the strategic bridge linking Crimea with Russia, amid growing tensions in the Black Sea.
Moscow also claimed on Saturday that it had launched an Su-30 to intercept an American Reaper drone over the sea. The number of attacks has increased on both sides since Moscow refused in mid-July to renew a negotiated agreement by the UN which authorized the export of Ukrainian cereals.
“During the night, the SBU (Ukrainian security services) blew up the ‘SIG’, an important oil tanker from Russia which was carrying fuel for the Russian soldiers,” a source from the services told AFP on Saturday. calling the ship “one of Russia’s leading tankers”.
This new “special operation” was carried out “successfully” with a naval drone and explosives, she added, assuring that the ship “was well loaded with fuel so the ‘fireworks’ were visible from afar. “.
The attack had been previously announced by the Russian Federal Agency for Maritime Transport on Telegram and the Russian agency RIA Novosti, which had specified that it had not caused any casualties.
Russian diplomacy condemned a Ukrainian attack on “a civilian ship”, which “not only put its crew at risk of death, but also raised the threat of a large-scale environmental disaster”.
According to the Russian maritime agency, the SIG tanker was hit south of the Kerch Strait. It suffered a hole in the waterline in the engine room area, “likely the result of a naval drone attack” but it “is afloat” and preparations are underway to repair the damage.
Traffic on the Crimean Bridge, connecting this peninsula annexed in 2014 to Russia, was suspended for three hours before resuming early Saturday, according to the Russian highway information center.
This bridge, hit twice by deadly Ukrainian operations, is used to transport equipment to the Russian military on the Ukrainian front but is also open to civilian road and rail traffic.
In Crimea itself, the Russian authorities announced on Saturday that they had shot down a Ukrainian drone during a new attempt to attack Sevastopol, a major port and Russian base on this peninsula.
On Friday, a Ukrainian drone strike targeted for the first time a Russian landing ship in a Russian base, Novorossïysk, a major oil port in southwestern Russia and terminus of an oil pipeline which is used in particular for the export of oil. Kazakh.
On the diplomatic front, Saudi Arabia, which supported UN Security Council resolutions after the Russian invasion, hosted a meeting in Jeddah on Saturday to discuss the “Ukrainian crisis”.
According to diplomats, the meeting was to bring together around forty countries, including the United States, China, India and Brazil. Russia was not represented, kyiv being at the origin of these discussions.
No final statement will be issued, while some delegations are planning bilateral meetings on Sunday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launched a counter-offensive in early June, which has so far met with only modest success.
The Russian army for its part claimed on Saturday the capture of the village of Novoselivské, in the north-east of Ukraine, an area where it has been attacking for several weeks.
