Huge fire at Russian oil refinery after Ukrainian attack

Ukrainian drone and missile attacks on the Rostov region were thwarted, the local governor said Thursday, but they caused a fire at an oil refinery that was later put out.

The Rostov region in southern Russia “was subjected to a massive enemy attack,” local governor Yury Slyusar said on Telegram in the morning.

He added that more than thirty drones and three missiles were launched during the attack, noting that Russian air defenses were activated in several cities in the region.

While most of the air targets were neutralized, a fire broke out at an oil refinery, according to Slyusar, who announced shortly later, that the fire had been extinguished.

One person was injured in a village near Rostov by falling fragments of a drone, the governor said.

For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that Kyiv’s attempts to carry out terrorist attacks using drones… were thwarted.

The Russian Defense Ministry added that Russian air defense systems had destroyed more than 80 drones across the country, including in the Rostov region.

Russian border areas come under frequent Ukrainian fire, with two separate attacks last week targeting Rostov and the Bryansk region (west), setting fire to an oil depot and damaging an industrial facility.

Meanwhile, a South Korean lawmaker quoted an intelligence official in Seoul as saying on Thursday that at least 100 North Korean soldiers sent by Pyongyang to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine were killed on the battlefield in December.

“In December, North Korean military engaged in real combat, during which at least 100 of their soldiers were killed,” lawmaker Lee Seung-kwon said after a briefing by a National Intelligence Service official to lawmakers.

He added that the intelligence service also said that there were nearly a thousand wounded among the North Korean forces during their fighting with Ukrainian forces.

The MP pointed to reports that many North Korean losses, including high-ranking officers, occurred due to attacks by Ukrainian missiles and drones, as well as during training accidents.

The MP quoted the NIS official as saying that the high number of North Korean casualties is due to the fact that the battlefield is an unfamiliar environment for North Korean forces, which are used as front-line offensive units that can be sacrificed, and the lack of capabilities to counter drone attacks.

According to Lee, information gathered by South Korean intelligence indicates complaints within the Russian military that North Korean forces, due to their lack of any knowledge of drones, are more of a burden than an asset.

The deputy added that the National Intelligence Service is closely monitoring the possibility of deploying more North Korean troops in Russia, which is expected to provide benefits to North Korea in return, such as modernizing its conventional weapons.

A senior US military official said on Tuesday that North Korean forces had suffered hundreds of casualties in fighting against Kyiv forces in the Russian Kursk region on the border with Ukraine.

To bolster the Russian war effort, Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to Russia, including to the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine, part of which was taken by Ukrainian forces earlier this year.

The US military official attributed these heavy losses primarily to the North Korean forces’ lack of combat experience.

“These aren’t battle-hardened soldiers… They have never been in combat,” he said, adding that this likely contributed to “the losses they suffered at the hands of the Ukrainians”.

The US military official’s statement came after Ukrainian Chief of Staff Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Russia had thrown North Korean units into the heart of an intensive offensive in Kursk over several days.

Pyongyang and Moscow have strengthened their military ties in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

A landmark defense agreement between Pyongyang and Moscow came into effect earlier this month.

Experts say North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, is desperate to obtain advanced technology and combat experience for his forces from Russia.