Russian shelling of Ukraine killed four people on Saturday, officials said, as the two countries exchanged drone attacks, one of which set ablaze a Russian oil depot, AP reports.

 

Two people died in Ukraine’s partly occupied Kherson region and two were wounded in the attack close to the regional capital, said Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin. Two other people died Saturday afternoon and 16 were wounded in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, according to Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

 

An oil depot in the Tsimlyansky district, deep inside Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, was set ablaze in the early hours of Saturday following a Ukrainian drone attack — the latest long-range strike by Kyiv’s forces on a border region.

 

Ukraine has in recent months stepped up aerial assaults on Russian soil, targeting refineries and oil terminals in an effort to slow down the Kremlin’s war machine. Moscow’s army is pressing hard along the front line in eastern Ukraine, where a shortage of troops and ammunition in the third year of war has made defenders vulnerable.

 

Rostov Gov. Vasily Golubev said the drone attack caused a fire spanning 200 square meters (2,100 square feet), but there were no casualties. Some five hours after he reported the fire on the Telegram messaging app, Golubev said it had been extinguished.