Ukraine says it hit a key fuel pipeline near Moscow that supplies Russian forces

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces hit an important fuel pipeline in the Moscow region that supplies the Russian army, Ukraine's military intelligence said Saturday, a claim that came amid a sustained Russian campaign of massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The operation was carried out late Friday, according to a statement on the Telegram messaging channel. The agency, which is known by its acronym HUR, described it as a “serious blow” to Russia’s military logistics.

HUR said its forces struck the Koltsevoy pipeline, which spans 400 kilometers (250 miles) and supplies the Russian army with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from refineries in Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow.

The operation, which targeted infrastructure near Ramensky district, destroyed all three fuel lines, HUR said.

The pipeline was capable of transporting up to 3 million tons of jet fuel, 2.8 million tons of diesel and 1.6 million tons of gasoline annually, HUR said.

“Our strikes have had more impact than sanctions,” said Kyrylo Budanov, the head of HUR, referring to international sanctions on Russia imposed over its all-out war and the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia's defense ministry on Saturday claimed its forces defeated a team of Ukrainian special forces that were rushed to the eastern front-line hotspot of Pokrovsk in a bid to stop Russian troops from pushing further into the city.

Russia and Ukraine have presented conflicting accounts of what is happening in Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last week that his forces had encircled the city's Ukrainian defenders.

But the spokesman for Ukraine's eastern forces, Hryhorii Shapoval, told The Associated Press last week that the situation in Pokrovsk is “hard but under control.” On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged that some Russian units had infiltrated the city, but insisted that Ukraine is weeding them out.

Kyiv did not immediately comment on the Russian defense ministry's latest claim. But Zelenskyy said last week that Russia had deployed around 170,000 troops in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk lies, in a major push to capture the city and claim a major battlefield victory.

Putin is trying to persuade the United States, which wants him to seek a peace deal, that Ukraine can’t hold out against Russian military superiority. He has also stressed what he says is Russia’s improving nuclear capability as he refuses to budge from what he says are his country’s legitimate war aims.

A key goal for Moscow has been to take all of Ukraine's industrial heartland of Donbas, made up of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Kyiv still controls about a tenth of the coal-rich region.

Elsewhere, a civilian died and 15 more were injured after Russia struck southern Ukraine with a ballistic missile on Saturday morning, local official Vitaliy Kim said. A child is among those injured in the strike on the Mykolaiv region, he said and added that Russia used an Iskander missile.

Another Russian strike early Saturday sparked a fire at a gas plant in the central Poltava region, Ukraine’s emergency service reported.

The latest strikes came as Russia keeps up massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — attacks that brought power outages and restrictions across Ukraine earlier this week, in what Kyiv described as a “systematic energy terror.”

Moscow launched 223 drones at Ukraine overnight into Saturday, 206 of which were shot down, according to the Ukrainian air force. Seventeen struck targets in seven Ukrainian regions, the air force said, without providing details.

Russia also hit an agricultural enterprise in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, injuring a 66-year old woman there, according to a Telegram update by regional government official Viacheslav Chaus.

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