By Pavel Polityuk and Anna Pruchnicka
KYIV, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Russia struck a petrol station in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and an international agribusiness facility run by Bunge in the southeastern city of Dnipro, authorities said on Thursday, as Moscow intensified attacks on logistics and economic targets.
Russia has escalated its air campaign against Ukraine in recent weeks, launching ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones at warehouses, food suppliers and retail chains. Kyiv has struggled to repel the attacks amid a shortage of air defence systems.
The strike on the Ukrnafta petrol station appeared to be the first jet-powered drone attack on such a facility in Kyiv. It followed around 300 attacks on petrol stations in or near Ukraine’s frontline regions in recent months.
Four people were injured, said Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
“There is no military objective in such strikes. This is terror and intimidation of the civilian population,” said Ukrnafta CEO Bohdan Kukura on Facebook.
‘NO COINCIDENCE’
In Dnipro, two people were killed in the attack on the Bunge sunflower oil facility, one of Ukraine’s five largest food plants with a processing capacity of 1,600 tons of oilseeds per day.
It was the second attack on a U.S.-owned business in several weeks, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
“This is no coincidence, but part of Moscow’s systematic terror campaign against American businesses and economic interests,” he wrote on X.
Five other people were wounded in the attack, a local official said.
In the northeastern city of Sumy, city officials said a jet-powered drone tore into a shopping centre – a day after two people were killed and 20 wounded in a similar attack there.
Moscow and Kyiv have traded escalating strikes in recent weeks on logistics and other economic targets aimed at damaging each other’s war effort.
Ukraine has attacked Russia’s largest online retailers, as well as energy and fuel logistics in Moscow-occupied regions and oil refineries deep inside Russia.
Russia, meanwhile, has stepped up strikes on Ukraine’s ports, killing four and injuring 19 in the southern city of Mykolaiv overnight, regional officials said.
(Writing by Dan Peleschuk;Editing by Ros Russell)
Comments