Over 1,000 people evacuated as fire rages at annexed Crimea's largest oil depot

More than 1,000 people have been evacuated in the annexed Crimean city of Feodosia after a Ukrainian drone strike set fire to the city’s oil depot the day before, Feodosia’s Russian-appointed mayor Igor Tkachenko said on Telegram on Tuesday.

“To ensure the safety of people living near the scene of the emergency site, 1,047 people have been temporarily evacuated to shelters,” Tkachenko said.

Evacuees were placed in hotels and guest houses in the city after registering and undergoing medical examinations, the mayor wrote, adding that efforts to extinguish the fire were ongoing. No casualties from the fire have been reported.

In a statement on Telegram on Monday, Ukraine’s military claimed responsibility for the airstrike on the Feodosia terminal, the largest oil processing facility on the peninsula.

“The Feodosia terminal is the largest in Crimea in terms of transshipment of oil products, which were used, among other things, to meet the needs of the Russian occupation army,” the statement read.

Russian municipal authorities in the city have said the fire was due to a “technical failure” at the depot, while the Russian Defence Ministry reported on Monday that 21 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted overnight, of which 12 were shot down over Crimea.

The attack on Feodosia’s oil depot is the latest in a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks targeting Russian-controlled energy facilities, which Ukraine deems as critical for supporting the Russian army’s war effort.