Russian attack kills four as Ukraine continues to search for oil | News of the Russian-Ukrainian war

Ukrainian officials say a Russian attack in Kramatorsk killed four, including a teenager, and wounded nine others.

The Russian military has killed four people, including a teenager, in an aerial bombardment in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, as it advances against Russian oil infrastructure and tanks.

Seven bombs hit apartments, shops and public buildings in Kramatorsk on Friday, injuring at least nine others, regional governor Vadym Filashkin wrote on the messaging app.

The Ukrainian military said it had hit two Russian oil facilities, an oil storage facility and an oil storage facility, as well as 10 tankers in the Sea of ​​Azov.

The Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, one of the largest in southern Russia, caught fire and the Ust-Luga oil refinery in the Leningrad region was also affected, officials said on Telegram. All of them are the ones who like to attack Ukraine.

Oil depots and oil depots in the Rostov region were hit, causing explosions and fires, according to the statement.

Robert Brovdi, the head of Ukraine’s military, said 10 tankers in the Sea of ​​Azov were attacked on Friday, among about 50 oil tankers damaged this week as Kyiv seeks to cut fuel to enemy forces and annex Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Controlling oil tanks appears to be a new strategy for Ukraine, Al Jazeera’s Audrey MacAlpine reported from Kyiv.

“This in particular, according to Ukraine, it also fills, it also gives the Crimean island controlled by Russia,” he said.

“It also says that these tankers are part of the Russian fleet, which is a term used to describe unidentified vessels carrying oil that Ukraine says is illegal, meaning that these are authorized vessels,” MacAlpine said.

This is part of what Ukraine is calling a “resource blockade”, hitting highways, railways and any kind of nerve that feeds the island, he said.

Moscow is banning the export of petrol and diesel

Russia’s deputy prime minister said on Friday that Ukrainian jet strikes on power lines are causing fuel shortages.

Speaking to reporters in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow, Novak said: “The shortfall is due to obvious reasons, because our oil refinery cannot be repaired due to the arrival (of the Ukrainian drone)”.

Stating that the authorities are working to strengthen the security of oil production and ensure that their oil production is fully utilized, Novak added that Moscow’s temporary ban on petrol and diesel is needed to “stabilise the situation”.

Russia currently has enough oil production capacity, he said, adding that the government wants to ensure that some of the oil is sent to Russian regions.

At the end of last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that Ukraine’s attack on Russian energy supplies had contributed to the oil shortage, but insisted that it was “not the problem”.

Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova, from Moscow, said that more than 50 million people, about a third of Russia’s population, have been affected by the oil crisis.