Ukrainian drone attack sets Russian oil depot on fire as Zelenskyy
announces prisoner exchange
[August 04, 2025]
An overnight Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot near
Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi sparked a major fire, Russian
officials said Sunday, as the two countries traded strikes and the
Ukrainian president announced a prisoner exchange.
More than 120 firefighters attempted to extinguish the blaze, which was
caused by debris from a downed drone striking a fuel tank, Krasnodar
regional Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram. Videos on social
media appeared to show huge pillars of smoke billowing above the oil
depot.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, temporarily stopped
flights at Sochi’s airport.
Farther north, authorities in the Voronezh region reported that four
people were wounded in another Ukrainian drone strike.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 93 Ukrainian
drones over Russia and the Black Sea overnight into Sunday.
Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, a Russian missile strike hit a
residential area in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the State
Emergency Services, wounding seven people.
The Ukrainian air force said Sunday Russia launched 76 drones and seven
missiles against Ukraine. It said 60 drones and one missile were
intercepted, but 16 others and six missiles hit targets across eight
locations.
The reciprocal attacks came at the end of one of the deadliest weeks in
Ukraine in recent months, after a Russian drone and missile attack on
Thursday killed 31 people, including five children, and wounded over
150.
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The continued attacks come after U.S. President Donald Trump last
week gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline — Aug.
8 — for peace efforts to make progress. Trump has threatened to
impose new economic sanctions on Russia if progress is not made,
while expressing doubt about how effective they would be.
“You know, they’re wily characters, and they’re pretty good at
avoiding sanctions, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said Sunday
evening of the Russians.
He said his special envoy Steve Witkoff may travel to Russia on
Wednesday or Thursday, the final days before his new deadline.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Ukraine and
Russia have agreed to exchange 1,200 prisoners following their
latest round of negotiations in Istanbul in July.
“There is an agreement to exchange 1,200 people," he wrote on X,
saying that the lists of individuals to be swapped were being worked
on and that they were working to “unblock the return of our
civilians.”
There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Zelenskyy also said he discussed with top Ukrainian officials “the
negotiation track – specifically, the implementation of the
agreements reached during the meetings with the Russian side in
Istanbul, as well as preparations for a new meeting.”
Each of the three rounds of talks between the countries this year
has resulted in prisoner exchanges but yielded no breakthrough in
reaching a ceasefire.
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