The Russians shelled Kharkov, the Ukrainians hit the oil depots near Smolensk

According to Terech, the Russian missile hit residential buildings in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kharkiv. The attack also damaged a gas pipeline, so the residents of Shevchenkivskyi lost gas supplies. Search and rescue teams are at the scene of the attacks.

According to Synehubov, Russian rockets injured three men and three women in Kharkiv, and also broke hundreds of windows and damaged 33 cars. According to the governor, the Russians also used glide bombs for the attack.

Elsewhere in the Kharkiv region, Russian rockets hit an administrative building in Zolochiv, which is located northwest of Kharkiv, regional administration head Syněhubov said on Telegram. No casualties or injuries have been reported from there yet.

Russia has recently stepped up attacks on Kharkiv using missiles, cruise bombs and drones. They attack energy infrastructure and civilians. The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote this week that the Kremlin is conducting a coordinated air and intelligence operation to destroy Kharkiv and force local residents to flee.

In a current analysis, ISW writes that Russian forces could focus on attacks on Ukrainian transport infrastructure in the coming weeks. On the contrary, Ukrainian drone attacks and flooding in Russian regions led to a reduction in the weekly production of Russian refineries to the lowest level in 11 months, ISW pointed out.

Russian forces have advanced in six villages in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, the Unian agency writes on Wednesday, citing analysts of the DeepState news channel, which is close to the Ukrainian military.

“Legitimate Targets”

The governor of Russia’s Smolensk region, Vasily Anokhin, announced on Wednesday that fires broke out at energy and fuel facilities in the Smolensk and Yartsevo districts as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack in the early hours of the morning. No casualties are reported.

The Ukrainian secret service SBU later claimed responsibility for the attack in the Smolensk region. Media sources said that the Rosneft company lost two storage and pumping bases, which contained 26,000 cubic meters of fuel. According to them, the attack caused a large-scale fire, due to which the employees had to evacuate.

“These facilities are and will remain our legitimate targets,” Reuters quoted SBU sources as saying that the infrastructure provides fuel for the Russian military in Ukraine.

Alleged Ukrainian attacks on energy and industrial infrastructure with the help of drones are also reported by the authorities of the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions in the west of Russia. According to Russian media, a fire broke out in the local oil refinery in the Voronezh region. At the same time, the regional governor, Alexander Gusev, claims that the Russian air defense over the region shot down four Ukrainian drones.

The governor of the Lipetsk region, Igor Artamanov, said the drone crashed into an “industrial zone of the Lipetsk region”.