 "Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. File image")
Ahead of US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s meeting in Alaska , Russia and Ukraine exchanged lethal strikes, reflecting that the Russia-Ukraine war is still raging on. Russian authorities said on Thursday that fallen debris from Ukrainian drones caused a fire at an oil refinery in Volgograd.
“Firefighters quickly began extinguishing the fire. According to preliminary data, there were no casualties,” Andrey Bocharov said on Telegram. The refinery belonged to Lukoil, which has yet to respond to the matter.
The news of the damage came shortly after Russia’s defence ministry said air defence systems had intercepted and destroyed 44 Ukrainian drones overnight, including nine over the Volgograd region.
Ukraine’s missile plants take hits in July
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces struck several Ukrainian missile plants, weapons design bureaus and rocket fuel production enterprises with missiles and drones last month.
The Russian forces destroyed several Western missile defence systems - including Patriot launchers and fire control radar in the Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions - that had been deployed to defend the plants, the ministry said.
“An attempt by the Kyiv regime, together with its Western partners, to organise the production of missiles to carry out attacks deep into the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted,” the ministry said.
The reports of these strikes are coming at a time when Trump will be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine. While Trump assured that he would bring the conflict to an end, Ukrainians and many European leaders raised concerns over the exclusion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the talks. Hence, it remains unclear if the Alaska summit would be fruitful or not.
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View AllWith inputs from Reuters.