Russia says it destroyed an oil refinery used by the Ukrainian military
Firefighters battle to extinguish an oil refinery blaze following a missile attack near the port city of Odesa, amid the ongoing Russia's invasion, in Ukraine, April 3 2022. Picture: NACHO DOCE/REUTERS
Russia’s defence ministry said strikes by its military destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities near Odesa. It said the facilities were used to supply Ukrainian troops near the city of Mykolaiv. Dmytro Lunin, governor of the central Poltava region, said the Kremenchug oil refinery, 350km northeast of Odesa, had been destroyed in a separate rocket attack on Saturday.
Mariupol is Russia’s main target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas, and tens of thousands of civilians there are trapped with scant access to food and water. Medinsky said that while Ukraine was showing more realism by agreeing to be neutral, renouncing nuclear weapons, not joining a military bloc and refusing to host military bases, there had been no progress on other Russia demands.
Russia has pulled back forces that had threatened Kyiv from the north to regroup for battles in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin and the Russian defence ministry in Moscow did not immediately reply to requests for comment when asked on Saturday about the bodies found in Bucha.Among those killed near Kyiv was Maksim Levin, a Ukrainian photographer and videographer who was working for a news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters.