(Melbourne/Seoul) Local government officials in Russia reported Sunday that a Ukrainian drone strike on the Black Sea port of Tuapse overnight damaged two foreign civilian vessels and port facilities.
The Krasnodar region government in southern Russia posted on Telegram Sunday (November 2nd): “In Tuapse, drone debris crashed onto an oil tanker, damaging the superstructure and causing a fire. The crew has been evacuated.”
Local officials stated that the airstrike also damaged two foreign civilian vessels; the fire has been extinguished, and there were no casualties.
Tuapse is a Russian city and important seaport on the Black Sea coast, primarily used for transporting oil and petrochemical products by tankers. It is also home to a major Rosneft refinery.
In retaliation for Russia's attack on the Ukrainian power grid, the Ukrainian military has intensified its attacks on Russian oil refineries, storage facilities, and pipelines in recent months, aiming to strain oil supplies, disrupt Russian military logistics, and increase the burden on Russian military spending.
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The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said on the same day that Russian forces launched a new round of airstrikes overnight in central and southern regions, killing six people, including two children, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and Odessa.
The governor of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Fedorov, said the airstrikes injured two people and left nearly 60,000 households without power. Donetsk, Ukraine, also experienced a power outage that day due to attacks on energy facilities by Russian forces.
According to AFP, Russian forces launched 270 missiles and nearly 5,300 long-range drones at Ukraine in October, indicating an escalation of their offensive.
Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Syrsky said on Saturday (1st) that Ukrainian special forces had been deployed to the eastern city of Pokrovsk to assist in the fight against the Russian offensive in this strategically important city.
Pokrovsk, located in the Donetsk region, is a key logistics route for the Ukrainian army, and Russia has been trying to capture it for the past year. The fall of Pokrovsk would be a propaganda victory for the Kremlin.
Sersky posted on Facebook, "A full-scale operation is underway to destroy and expel the enemy forces in Pokrovsk."
He said Pokrovsk is under pressure from "thousands of enemy troops," but denied that the city was besieged, stating that "there is no blockade."
North Korean POWs Demand to Move to South Korea
Meanwhile, two North Korean prisoners of war captured in Ukraine, during an interview with a South Korean human rights organization in Kyiv last week for a documentary, demanded to settle in South Korea.
North Korea previously sent troops to assist Russia in its invasion of Ukraine and admitted to some casualties. South Korean intelligence stated that as of September, approximately 2,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed in combat.
