Fire at Crimea fuel depot extinguished after apparent drone attack - governor

[April 29, 2023]  (Reuters) -A fire at a fuel storage facility in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, caused by an apparent drone strike, has been extinguished, the Moscow-installed governor there said on Saturday.  

A view shows smoke rising following an alleged drone attack in Sevastopol, Crimea, April 29, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer

"Open fire was extinguished in an area of 1,000 square meters," Mikhail Razvozhaev said on the Telegram messaging app.

Earlier he said no one was injured and according to preliminary information the depot was hit by two drones.

Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, said on Telegram that air defence and electronic warfare forces on Saturday shot down two drones over the Crimean Peninsula.

"There are no casualties or destruction," he said.

Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, has come under repeated air attacks since Russia invaded the country as a whole in February 2022.

Russian officials have blamed the attacks on Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Ukraine's armed forces said he did not have any information to suggest Ukraine was responsible for Saturday's fire.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by William Mallard, Andrew Heavens, Alexandra Hudson)

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