Ukrainian attack sparks fire at Russian oil depot as pair trade strikes in deadly week

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot near the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi ignited a raging fire, as the two countries traded strikes at the end of one of the deadliest weeks in Ukraine in recent months.

- Deborah Cole

More than 120 firefighters worked to put out the blaze, said the regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, as emergency officials reported a fuel tank with a capacity of 2,000 cubic metres (70,000 cubic feet) had burned before it was extinguished.

Drone wreckage hit an "oil tank, which caused a fire", Kondratyev said on the Telegram messaging app.

Sochi, which hosted the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, is about 250 miles (400km) from the Ukrainian border. Video clips on social media showed huge black pillars of smoke pouring out from the facility.

Russia's civil aviation authority temporarily halted flights at Sochi airport, as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced fresh plans for a prisoner exchange.

Kyiv has repeatedly pounded infrastructure in Russia that it sees as key to Moscow's war effort but attacks on Sochi have been relatively rare.

The strike came as a Russian missile hit a residential area in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, according to the state emergency services, wounding at least seven people. Officials in nearby Kherson said Russia again bombed a crucial bridge, causing significant damage.

In Russia's Voronezh region, authorities said four people were hurt in a separate Ukrainian drone strike.