A fuel terminal in Kerch that was attacked overnight is on fire

A fire broke out at a fuel terminal in Russian-occupied Kerch on the night of June 20–21.

This was reported by Krym.Realii.

According to the publication, after midnight, the occupying authorities temporarily closed the Crimean Bridge to traffic, and later, Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, claimed there had been an alleged drone attack and that Russian air defenses had been activated. He did not provide any details on the consequences of the strikes.

At the same time, numerous videos of the fire began to appear on social media, showing that it was the fuel terminal in Kerch that caught fire following the alleged strikes.

There is currently no independent confirmation of the cause of the fire. Russian officials have not commented on reports of a possible strike on the facility.

Since the beginning of the summer, Ukrainian drones have significantly disrupted the logistics of Russian troops in the south. Within two weeks of the strikes, freight traffic along the main land route to the temporarily occupied Crimea dropped by 71%, and the Russian command was forced to restrict the transport of military cargo. Aftertwo weeks of intensive operations by Ukrainian drones, the Russian command of the “Vostok” military group was forced, starting June 7, to ban the transport of military cargo along the Mariupol–Berdyansk–Melitopol–Simferopol route.

This is a key overland route connecting occupied Crimea with the seized territories of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk regions. 

Amid mounting losses,the Russian military has already begun to changeits tactics. Due to the risk of new strikes, they are camouflaging military trucks as civilian vehicles and, in some cases, using civilian vehicles to transport fuel.

Олеся Ланцман