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Ukraine drones hit Russian pipeline, refinery and depot

Ukraine's military has launched new drone strikes aimed at energy sites deep inside Russia. (AP PHOTO)

Ukrainian drones have struck targets across several Russian regions including an oil pipeline pumping station, a refinery and a fuel ‌depot, Russian and Ukrainian authorities say in an escalating campaign of strikes against energy infrastructure often hundreds of kilometres inside Russia.

Ukraine's ‌General Staff said it had struck the Saratov oil refinery on the Volga river, causing a large fire.

Saratov regional governor Roman Busargin said on Telegram that "civil infrastructure" had been damaged in the strike but gave no more details.

"During the night, our soldiers applied Ukraine's long-range sanctions against an oil refinery in Saratov, Russia. This is about 700km from the front line," ‌Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

Not ‌all the drones ⁠struck their targets.

Russia's defence ministry said it had downed 216 drones overnight.

Ukraine said it had also struck the Lazarevo pumping station in the Kirov region, northeast of Moscow and about 1300km from Ukrainian-held territory, which serves the Surgut-Gorky-Polotsk pipeline, shipping Russian oil from Siberia to Belarus.

Kirov regional governor Alexander Sokolov said drones had hit a facility in the region but gave no further information.

In the Rostov region, ⁠which borders Ukraine's Donbas, the focus of fighting in the more ‌than four-year-old ​war, authorities in the town of Matveyev Kurgan said a major fire was burning after drones hit a fuel depot ​in the town, ‌which adjoins the Russian-held part of Donetsk region.

Ukraine confirmed the strike.

Governors in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions, both of which ​border Ukraine, also reported damage, with three civilians injured in Belgorod.

On the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula, Kremlin-backed governor Sergei Aksyonov said authorities were introducing restrictions on sales of petrol.

He did not say why but Ukraine has for months ​been attacking ​fuel infrastructure in southwestern Russia, close to Crimea.

Ukraine's air force said Russia had launched ‌229 drones overnight, 212 of which were downed over northern and eastern Ukraine.

Russia accused Ukraine of hitting a garage at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in occupied Ukrainian territory on Sunday.

Ukraine's foreign ministry denied the allegation, which followed a separate accusation of a strike on the plant yesterday, which Ukraine also denied.

The United Nations nuclear energy watchdog, which has inspectors at the Russian-occupied and ​administered plant, said on Sunday its team observed damage to a turbine building caused by drones on Saturday but ​did not specify whose drones.

It said ⁠that radiation levels at the site remained normal.

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