Ukrainian drone attack sparks massive fire at Russian oil depot

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot near Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi sparked a major fire, Russian officials have said, as the two countries traded strikes.

More than 120 firefighters attempted to extinguish the blaze, sparked after debris from a downed drone struck a fuel tank, Krasnodar regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram on Sunday.

Videos on social media appear to show huge pillars of smoke billowing above the oil depot.

Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, temporarily stopped flights at Sochi’s airport.

Further north, authorities in the Voronezh region reported four people were injured in another Ukrainian drone strike.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences shot down 93 Ukrainian drones over Russia and the Black Sea overnight into Sunday.

In southern Ukraine, a Russian missile strike hit a residential area in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the emergency services, injuring seven people.

The Ukrainian air force said on Sunday that Russia launched 76 drones and seven missiles against Ukraine. It said 60 drones and one missile were intercepted, but 16 others and six missiles hit targets across eight locations.

The reciprocal attacks came at the end of one of the deadliest weeks in Ukraine in recent months, after a Russian drone and missile attack on Thursday killed 31 people, including five children, and injured more than 150.

The continued attacks come after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline of August 8 for peace efforts to make progress.

He then said on Thursday that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine, and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to exchange 1,200 prisoners following their latest round of negotiations in Istanbul in July.

“There is an agreement to exchange 1,200 people,” he wrote on X, saying the lists of individuals to be swapped are being finalised and they are working to “unblock the return of our civilians”.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Mr Zelensky also said he discussed with top Ukrainian officials “the negotiation track – specifically, the implementation of the agreements reached during the meetings with the Russian side in Istanbul, as well as preparations for a new meeting”.

Each of the three rounds of talks between the countries this year has resulted in prisoner exchanges but yielded no breakthrough in reaching a ceasefire.