Crimea Oil Depot Hit in Suspected Ukrainian Drone Strike

Mr. Razvozhaev said no one had been injured and the explosion wouldn’t affect the overall fuel supply. “Since the volume of fuel is large, it will take time to localize the fire,” he said. 

Ukrainian officials didn’t immediately comment on the alleged drone attack. Explosions have repeatedly hit strategic points on the Crimean Peninsula—including an airfield and the Kerch Bridge, which connects the peninsula with Russia—in recent months, but Ukraine has only occasionally claimed responsibility. 

An apartment block in the central Ukrainian city of Uman was hit by missiles launched by Russia, as Moscow fired a wave of strikes across Ukraine. Shelling blamed on Ukraine also struck a village in the Russian-controlled part of Donetsk. Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images

The Sevastopol drone strike came a day after Moscow struck several areas of Ukraine with cruise missiles, including an apartment building in the central city of Uman, where at least 23 people were killed. At least two others were killed in a missile strike on Dnipro, bringing the total casualties to 25, including five children, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Friday that workers were still searching through the rubble in Uman. The city is primarily known as the site of an annual pilgrimage of Hasidic Jews. 

“This proves once again that we can stop terror and save people only with weapons,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Air defense, modern aircraft, without which there is no fully effective air defense. Artillery, armored vehicles.”

So far, few Western countries have agreed to send jet fighters to Ukraine. However, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that many of the weapons pledged to the country earlier this year—including dozens of modern battle tanks—have now been delivered and crews are training on them before the country begins its counteroffensive. 

“The training is coming to an end,” he said Friday in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian media. He said that once training is completed, crews will stay with the weapons. “We are ready,” he added.

Though Ukraine has said little about what areas its forces might target in the offensive, many Western analysts expect that they will try to break through Russian lines in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, which could cut the land corridor between Russia and Crimea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order Thursday that would effectively require residents in four partially Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine to obtain Russian passports, including the Zaporizhzhia region. Those who don’t will be considered foreign nationals and could be deported. 

Russia also has this week boosted its Mediterranean naval presence with a warship fitted with hypersonic as well as cruise missiles, all of them capable of carrying thermonuclear warheads, state news agency Tass reported Saturday.

The frigate Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov, which belongs to Russia’s Northern Fleet, will be leading a naval task force permanently stationed in the Syrian port city of Tartus, Tass reported, citing security sources.

Tartus faces the island of Cyprus, which hosts large NATO air force and naval bases.

The Admiral Gorshkov, which Tass said would be patrolling the Mediterranean, is armed with cruise missiles, including the latest-generation Zircon missiles, which the Kremlin claims can avoid aerial defenses by flying nine times the speed of sound, as well as the older Kalibr and Oniks rockets. 

Russia has used some of these missiles, which have a range exceeding 600 miles and have often been fired from ships in the Black Sea, to attack targets deep into Ukraine.

—Bojan Pancevski and Nikita Nikolaienko also contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Lovett at [email protected]