Aftermath of a Russian strike on a steel plant in Ukraine
Friday’s Coverage: Kyiv Strikes Oil Refinery 1,500 Kilometers Inside Russia
UPDATE 0701 GMT:
Ukraine’s drones reportedly struck the Ilsky oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai in southwest Russia overnight.
Monitoring channel ExileNova+ shared photos and footage of the cliamed attack just after midnight. Flames shot into the night sky accompanied by a low hum resembling that of drone engines.
Local officials confirmed a drone attack but did not specify what was struck.
UPDATE 0618 GMT:
Russia is targeting Ukraine’s data centers and telecommunications infrastructure in its latest attacks.
The Russians have fired on the facilities every day since Wednesday. Around 100,000 households and businesses in Kyiv and the surrounding region suffered temporary internet outages after strikes on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday, a drone strike hit the offices of Datagroup, one of Ukraine’s largest telecommunications companies, murdering four civilians.
On Thursday, Polish authorities reported a Starlink satellite station serving Ukraine from central Poland had been set afire. Local officials described an “act of sabotage” linked to Moscow.
UPDATE 0616 GMT:
Ukraine’s air defenses downed 134 of 173 drones, more than 50 of them jet-powered, launched by Russia overnight. Strikes were recorded at 19 locations.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine’s largest steel company, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, has halted production after four Russian strikes in the last five weeks.
The attacks killed five workers and caused extensive damage at the plant in Kryvyi Rih in south-central Ukraine.
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih joined Ukraine’s other top companies, Metinvest and Interpipe, in suspending production.
The metallurgy sector, contributing 7% of Ukraine’s gross domestic product last year, employs tens of thousands of people. Russia has carried out at least nine separate ballistic missile attacks on the plants since last August, costing steelmakers close to $100 million.
In 2022, Russian forces occupied and destroyed the Azovstal and Illich plants in Mariupol in southeast Ukraine, wiping out 40% of the country’s steel production.
Oleksandr Kalenkov, President of Ukraine’s steel association, Ukrmetallurgprom, called for international assistance, “We don’t really have another choice. Otherwise, we will have to stop production until the end of the war, which could last for many years, and I have doubts that we would be able to save our employees in that time.”
Karin Karlsbro, a member of the European Parliament (MEP), is urging the European Union to remove Ukraine from its tariff regime introduced in June.
The steel sector, warning Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi that the situation is a breaking point, is proposing a mechanism similar to the Ukraine Energy Support Fund. That would pool financing from partners to help affected companies procure critical equipment from Europe.
