Extract from ABC News
A massive fire erupted at an oil reservoir in Crimea on Saturday after the facility was struck by a drone, according to a Russia-appointed official.
Key points:
- The Crimean city of Sevastopol has been subject to regular drone attacks in recent weeks
- The city's Russian-installed governor says a drone attack was behind a massive fire at an oil reservoir on Saturday
- The Crimean Peninsula has been under Russian control since 2014, and Ukraine says it is seeking to reclaim it as it moves to repel Russia's forces
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of the Black Sea peninsula's port city of Sevastopol, used Telegram to post videos and photos of the blaze, which covered an area of 1,000 square metres before it was extinguished.
He said experts had examined the site after the fire and "only one drone was able to reach the oil reservoir". Another drone was downed, and its wreckage was found on the shore near the terminal, he added.
Mr Razvozhayev said the fire did not cause any casualties and would not hinder fuel supplies in Sevastopol, which has been subject to regular drone attacks, especially in recent weeks.
A Ukrainian military intelligence official said more than 10 tanks of oil products with a capacity of around 40,000 tonnes intended for use by Russia's Black Sea Fleet were destroyed in the fire, RBC Ukraine reported.
The official, Andriy Yusov, did not claim Ukraine was responsible for the explosion, instead describing the blast as "God's punishment" for a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Uman on Friday, which killed at least 23 civilians.
Almost all of the victims died when two missiles slammed into an apartment building. Three children were among the dead.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considered illegal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country is seeking to reclaim the peninsula during Russia's current full-scale invasion.
Founder says Wagner group could disappear
Meanwhile, Russia's private Wagner militia, which is leading the assault on Bakhmut in Ukraine and has been active in Africa, could soon cease to exist, founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in video remarks to a blogger.
It was not immediately clear when Mr Prigozhin had spoken and how serious he was being. Earlier this week he withdrew comments about the front line, saying they had been a joke.
Mr Prigozhin has repeatedly complained about how Russia is conducting the war in Ukraine.
He often says the regular armed forces are not giving his men the ammunition they need and he sometimes accuses top brass of betrayal.
"Now, with regard to the need in general for shells at the front, what we want, today we are coming to the point where Wagner is ending," he told Russian war blogger Semyon Pegov.
"Wagner, in a short period of time, will cease to exist. We will become history," he continued.
"Nothing to worry about. Things like this happen."
Mr Pegov posted the clip on his Telegram channel. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Prigozhin, known for his combative style and ironic sense of humour, said he had been joking when he said his forces would stop shelling Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces to show the city to US journalists.
Mr Prigozhin said this week his troops were suffering heavy casualties due to a lack of support from Moscow.
Last week he expressed concern about a counterattack by well-equipped Ukrainian troops at Bakhmut.
Wagner has in the past dispatched soldiers to fight in Syria and in conflicts across Africa.
In January, the United States formally designated Wagner as a transnational criminal organisation, freezing its US assets for helping Russia's military in the Ukraine war.
Polish 'seizure' of school prompts pledge of harsh response from Russia
Russia on Saturday promised it would respond harshly to what it said was Poland's illegal seizure of its embassy school in Warsaw, an act it called a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.
A Polish foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters the building housing the embassy school belonged to the Polish state.
Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that the Polish authorities had burst onto the embassy school's grounds with the aim of seizing it.
"We regard this latest hostile act by the Polish authorities as a blatant violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and as an encroachment on Russian diplomatic property in Poland," the ministry said.
"Such an insolent step by Warsaw, which goes beyond the framework of civilised inter-state relations, will not remain without a harsh reaction and consequences for the Polish authorities and Polish interests in Russia," it said.
Lukasz Jasina, a Polish foreign ministry spokesman, told Reuters that it was Russia's right to protest but that Poland was acting within the law.
"Our opinion, which has been confirmed by the courts, is that this property belongs to the Polish state and was taken by Russia illegally," he said.
Sergei Andreyev, Moscow's ambassador to Poland, had earlier told Russian state news agencies that the building housing the embassy school was a diplomatic one which Polish authorities had no right to seize.
The two countries' already fraught relations have soured further over the war in Ukraine, with Warsaw positioning itself as one of Kyiv's staunchest allies and playing a leading role in persuading allies to provide it with heavy weaponry.
Mr Andreyev said earlier this week that Polish prosecutors had seized significant amounts of money from the frozen bank accounts of the Russian embassy and trade mission.
In March 2022, Poland said it was expelling 45 Russian diplomats suspected of working for Moscow's intelligence services.
Russian court fines war critic who asked for prison instead
A court in Russia on Friday convicted a woman from a Siberian city over social media posts condemning the war in Ukraine, punished her with a steep fine even though both she and the prosecution asked for a prison sentence.
Marina Novikova, a 65-year-old lawyer, was found guilty of "spreading false information" about the Russian army, which was made a criminal offence after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine more than 14 months ago.
Novikova's Telegram posts decried the invasion and criticised the Russian government.
The court in Seversk, Novikova's hometown, imposed a fine of over 1 million roubles (more than $18,800), the Russian human rights and legal aid group OVD-Info quoted her husband, Alexandr Gavrik, as saying.
Prosecutors had requested a three-year prison sentence, and Novikova herself pleaded with the court to send her to prison rather than the alternative: a fine of at least 700,000 roubles ($13,220) that the law allowed. She said she didn't have the money to pay a fine of that size.
"I am prepared to pay the price for the right to remain a human … because I understand that there will be no acquittal," Novikova was quoted by Russian media as saying in court.
An average salary in Siberia's Tomsk province, where Seversk is located, is 56,000 roubles, or just over $1,000, according to official government statistics.
The case against Novikova was among the first ones launched under the new law that prohibited spreading false information about the Russian military, OVD-Info said.
A court in Moscow convicted former police officer Semiel Vedel on Monday of publicly spreading false information about the country's military for criticising the war in Ukraine to his friend over the phone.
Authorities argued his phone conversations qualified as "public" because his phone was being wire tapped in connection to another criminal case, and there was a third person listening in.
AP/Reuters
