At least four storage tanks were badly damaged in a fire at an oil storage warehouse in the port of Sevastopol. This is evident from the satellite image from Planet Labs taken on Tuesday. Since the fire at the oil port that flared up on Saturday, it has been cloudy so far, which is why aerial images were not available beforehand.
According to Russian authorities, the tanks caught fire after the drone strike. The General Staff of Ukraine reported on Sunday that at least ten tanks had been destroyed, causing a loss of 40,000 tons of storage capacity.
Satellite images from Tuesday showed six of the ten white tanks were intact, while four were blacked out. There are also two smaller tanks which may be damaged, but are less visible from the air.
Sevastopol is an important port city on the Crimean Peninsula, which has been annexed by Russia since 2014. In the past year, Ukraine has hit targets in Crimea several times. The attack on the Crimean bridgehead, which Ukraine does not officially claim, was extraordinary.
With this attack, Ukraine wanted to make it difficult for Russia to use Crimea as a base for an invasion of Ukraine. The four tanks destroyed would have supplied fuel to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which was used to attack Ukrainian cities.
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