A Russian politician said Friday that Ukrainian forces blew up an oil depot on Russian soil.
The governor of Belgorod wrote on Telegram that two Ukrainian helicopters launched an airstrike on a depot in the Russian city of Belgorod.
Two oil workers were injured, but there were no casualties.
A number of videos purporting to show the burning oil facility were posted to Russian social media platform V Kontakte. There are videos that claim to show the Ukrainian Air Force helicopter flying over Belgorod.
Insider couldn't verify the authenticity of the videos.
One was posted by a semi-official Ukrainian military account, with the caption "Ukrainian aviation at work in Belgorod!"
—🇺🇦Armed Forces (@ArmedForcesUkr) April 1, 2022
When asked about the claims by the journalists with the German newspaper, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military said they did not have this information.
The attack could be a false flag operation to justify more violence against Ukrainians.
Russia's defense ministry did not comment on the incident.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive focused on retaking parts of the territory lost to Russia at the start of the war.
Trostyanets and Irpin, as well as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, were captured by the Ukrainians in recent days. A US official told ABC News that Hostomel seemed to have been abandoned by Russia.
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia was preparing to shift the focus of its attacks on Ukraine, the gains came.
Zelenskyy said that the claim that Russia was scaling back attacks on Kyiv was actually a repositioning.
The US and British intelligence warned against taking Russia's troop movements as proof of a withdrawal.
Zelenskyy called on the Western powers to give Ukraine more arms.
We need more support from our partners. He said that when the Russian military is concentrating additional forces.
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