MOSCOW: Russian firefighters on Thursday battled for a second day to put out a blaze caused by a Ukrainian drone strike on an oil depot.
\nKyiv hit the depot in the city of Engels, some 500 kilometers from the two countries\u2019 border, in Russia\u2019s southern Saratov region on Wednesday.
\nMoscow has said that two fire firefighters died trying to extinguish the blaze.
\nHours after the drone strike, Russia bombed the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 100.
\n\u201cEmergency services are continuing to put out the consequences of the drone attack,\u201d Saratov governor Roman Busargin said on Telegram.
\n\u201cSpecialists say that it will take some time to complete the burnout process,\u201d he added.
\nBusargin said there was \u201cno threat\u201d to residential buildings.
\nRussia declared an emergency situation in Engels on Wednesday.
\nImages on social media showed a giant plume of smoke rising over the city, which has a population of around 220,000.
\nUkraine has hit Russian infrastructure \u2013 sometimes deep behind the front lines \u2013 throughout Moscow\u2019s offensive.
\nIt has said that hitting the depot will cause \u201cserious logistical problems\u201d for Moscow\u2019s air force.
\nHours after the drone strike, Russia struck Zaporizhzhia, a southern Ukrainian city close to Moscow-occupied territory, killing 13 people.
\nKyiv on Thursday said that 113 people were also wounded in the Zaporizhzhia strike, in an updated toll.
\nRussian attacks on the southern Kherson region killed two people on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said.
\nProsecutors said the attacks killed a 54-year-old man in the village of Beryslav \u2013 on the Dnipro river that marks the front line \u2013 and a 60-year-old woman in Nezlamne, west of the city of Kherson.
\nThe conflict in Ukraine \u2013 nearing its three-year mark \u2013 has escalated in recent months, with both sides seeking to gain an advantage ahead of Donald Trump returning to the US presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: Russian firefighters on Thursday battled for a second day to put out a blaze caused by a Ukrainian drone strike on an oil depot. Kyiv hit the depot in the city of Engels, some 500 kilometers from the two countries\u2019 border, in Russia\u2019s southern Saratov region on Wednesday. Moscow has said that two fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-454390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n