Black Sea drilling platform still on fire: Russian lawmaker

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A fire that broke out after Ukrainian forces fired at oil rigs off the coast of Crimea is approaching an oil well, a senior lawmaker said on Tuesday.

Crimea governor Sergey Aksyonov cast the blame on Kiev's forces for the attack, revealing that three people sustained injuries as a result of the attacks on the Black Sea platform, in addition to seven people that went missing.

"As for the fire, it is not subsiding on the platform. At night, the fire approached the oil well," Olga Kovitidi, a Russian senator for Crimea, told the Interfax news agency. 

He revealed that the authorities were still conducting search missions for the missing persons, while those injured are currently receiving medical attention at health facilities, but their condition is not critical.

Preliminary information shows that not everyone was saved, Kryuchkov said, underlining that there was still hope.

The strike on the Black Sea platform was the first one to target offshore energy infrastructure in Crimea since the start of the Ukraine war in late February.

Three platforms were targeted in Crimea, revealed Governor Askyonov, which led to the evacuation of 94 people on the sites. The targeted rigs belonged to the Crimea-based Chernomorneftegaz, which the United States has had under sanctions since 2014 after the Crimean crisis.

Following the attack, the operations in the affected facilities were suspended, and the pipes were emptied of gas in order to avoid explosions.

Days ahead of the attack, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that more than 50 Ukrainian generals and officers were killed in a strike on a command center in the Ukrainian Dnipropetrovsk region.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said long-range, high-precision Kalibr missiles launched from the sea hit the headquarters of the Ukrainian forces near the village of Shiroka Dacha in the Dnipropetrovsk province, while a work meeting for the leaders of the Alexandria strategic operational group was being held.

At the beginning of the Ukraine war, the authorities of the Lugansk People's Republic announced that 200 tons of diesel fuel caught fire as a result of an explosion at an oil storage facility in the city of Rovinki as a result of the Ukrainian bombing.

The gas pipelines were also damaged as a result of the continuous Ukrainian bombing, which led to the cutting off of gas to nearly 170 homes.