The Ukrainian Army General Staff confirmed the attack on Tuapse on Tuesday, claiming the refinery is involved in Russia’s army supply chain in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
But Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces, hinted this was just the latest attack. “Tuapse 3.0. Groundhog Day remake. Regular thermal disposal of black [Russian] gold, caused, of course, by spontaneous combustion,” Brovdi snarked in a post on Facebook on Tuesday.
Ukraine has been systematically attacking Russia’s Tuapse refinery and port since mid-April. Local authorities took four days to extinguish a blaze after an attack on April 20. Locals complained on social media about an environmental disaster, saying that black rain was falling on the city.
The day before the third attack on Tuapse, Mayor Sergei Boyko reported local utility workers were still cleaning the city and port of oil products. Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Kyiv’s forces must keep bombing oil refineries to cut Russia’s main cash supply for war.
Russian forces also regularly attack Ukrainian power plants and ports in Odesa. The Kremlin’s latest attack, on Monday, caused a 6,000-ton spill of sunflower oil in the Black Sea.