Russia and Ukraine exchange strikes as ‘key fuel pipeline’ near Moscow hit

Ukrainian forces have hit an important fuel pipeline in the Moscow region that supplies the Russian army, Ukraine’s military intelligence has said.

The operation was carried out late on Friday, according to a statement on the Telegram messaging channel. The agency, which is known by its acronym HUR, described it as a “serious blow” to Russia’s military logistics.

HUR said its forces struck the Koltsevoy pipeline, which spans 250 miles and supplies the Russian army with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from refineries in Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow.

The operation, which targeted infrastructure near Ramensky district, destroyed all three fuel lines, HUR said.

The pipeline was capable of transporting up to three million tonnes of jet fuel, 2.8 million tonnes of diesel and 1.6 million tonnes of gasoline annually, HUR said.

“Our strikes have had more impact than sanctions,” said Kyrylo Budanov, the head of HUR, referring to international sanctions on Russia imposed over its all-out war and the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its forces defeated a team of Ukrainian special forces that were rushed to the eastern front line hotspot of Pokrovsk in a bid to stop Russian troops from pushing further into the city.

It later posted videos showing two men it said were Ukrainian troops who had surrendered in the embattled city. The videos show the men, one dressed in fatigues and the other in a dark green jacket, sat against a peeling wall in a dark room, as they speak of fierce fighting and encirclement by Russian forces. The videos’ authenticity could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate public comment from Kyiv on the Russian ministry’s claims.

Russia and Ukraine have presented conflicting accounts of what is happening in Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last week that his forces had encircled the city’s Ukrainian defenders.

But Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Saturday that while the situation in Pokrovsk remains “hardest” for Ukrainian forces, who are trying to push Russian troops out of the city, there is no encirclement or blockade as Moscow has maintained.

“A comprehensive operation to destroy and push out enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing. The main burden lies on the shoulders of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly UAV operators and assault units,” Mr Syrskyi said in a statement on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that some Russian units had infiltrated the city, but insisted that Ukraine is weeding them out.

Mr Zelensky said that Russia had deployed around 170,000 troops in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk lies, in a major push to capture the city and claim a major battlefield victory.

Mr Putin is trying to persuade the United States, which wants him to seek a peace deal, that Ukraine cannot hold out against Russian military superiority. He has also stressed what he says is Russia’s improving nuclear capability as he refuses to budge from what he says are his country’s legitimate war aims.

A key goal for Moscow has been to take all of Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donbas, made up of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Kyiv still controls about a 10th of the coal-rich region.

Elsewhere, a civilian died and 15 more were injured after Russia struck southern Ukraine with a ballistic missile on Saturday morning, local official Vitaliy Kim said. A child is among those injured in the strike on the Mykolaiv region, he said and added that Russia used an Iskander missile.

Another Russian strike early on Saturday sparked a fire at a gas plant in the central Poltava region, Ukraine’s emergency service reported.

The latest strikes came as Russia keeps up massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — attacks that brought power outages and restrictions across Ukraine earlier this week, in what Kyiv described as a “systematic energy terror”.

Moscow launched 223 drones at Ukraine overnight into Saturday, 206 of which were shot down, according to the Ukrainian air force. Seventeen struck targets in seven Ukrainian regions, the air force said, without providing details.

Russia also hit an agricultural enterprise in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, injuring a 66-year old woman there, according to a Telegram update by regional government official Viacheslav Chaus.

Russian forces during the night shot down or intercepted 98 Ukrainian drones flying over the country, including six on the approach to Moscow, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday. There were no immediate reports of casualties.