Sochi

Sept. 9 (UPI) — Ukrainian drones struck the Russian city of Sochi early Tuesday morning hours after President Vladimir Putin joined a virtual meeting with other world leaders from the Black Sea vacation destination.

Russian air defenses intercepted 31 Ukrainian drones in the attack, shooting down about half over the Black Sea in the overnight attack, military officials told the state-run TASS news agency.The attack damaged six homes and killed one person in Sochi after drone debris fell on the car he was driving, Krasnodar Region Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev, told TASS.

The strike came in response to Russia’s growing wave of drone attacks that are meant to overwhelm Ukraine‘s air defenses. The same morning, more than 20 people in Ukraine waiting in lines for pensions were killed by a Russian drone attack.

While it’s unclear if Putin was in Sochi during the attack, the Russian leader was at his residence in the city where he participated in a video conference with other leaders in BRICS, an intergovernmental organization intended to be a counterweight to the United States and Europe, according to a Kremlin readout.

Hours earlier a Il-96-300PU aircraft of the Rossiya squadron arrived in Sochi, reported the independent news outlet Agentstvo, citing flight data. That plane had the tail number RA-96024, which was the same as the aircraft Putin used to fly to Alaska to meet with President Donald Trump last month, according to the new outlet.

Russian authorities closed the airport in Sochi in response to the attacks, reported independent new outlet Meduza.

Sochi hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics and is regarded as Russia’s top resort city. Putin previously spent weeks at his residence “Bocharov Ruchey” in Sochi but has avoided visiting the city since Ukraine increased drone strikes, according to the news outlet.

Ukraine has regularly hit Russian oil and gas infrastructure in response to attacks on its own territory.

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack has sparked a fire at an oil depot in Sochi, the southwestern Russian resort that hosted the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, local authorities say.

The attack came a day after Ukraine’s military said it struck the Ryazan oil refinery in central Russia, causing a fire. Ukraine has regularly hit Russian oil and gas infrastructure in response to attacks on its own territory since Russia began its war in February 2022.

“Sochi suffered a drone attack by the Kyiv regime last night,” the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratiev, said on the Telegram messaging application on Sunday.

Drone wreckage hit an “oil tank, which caused a fire”, Kondratiev said.

Sochi Mayor Andrei Proshunin said there were no victims and “the situation is totally under control”, adding that firefighters were extinguishing the blaze.

Air traffic was briefly suspended at Sochi’s airport but has resumed, Russia’s air transport regulator Rosaviatsia said.

Air strikes on Sochi, about 400km (250 miles) southeast of the Ukrainian border, are relatively rare compared with other Russian cities. However, Ukrainian drone attacks killed two people in the region late last month, according to local authorities.

Ukrainian officials have not commented on the fire.

Kyiv has warned it will intensify its air strikes against Russia in response to an increase in Russian attacks on its territory in recent weeks, which have killed dozens of civilians.

On Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram that Russia had launched 76 attack drones and seven missiles targeting Ukraine overnight, striking eight locations throughout Ukraine. Ukraine’s air defence units destroyed 60 of the drones and one missile, it said.

In the front-line regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson, at least three people were killed and more than 12 injured in Russian attacks over the 24 hours into Sunday morning, regional governors said.

A Russian missile strike on the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine also injured at least seven people and destroyed or damaged dozens of homes and civilian infrastructure, the regional governor said.

In the early days of the war, the Mykolaiv region stood on the front lines, facing frequent artillery strikes and aerial attacks. Even after Russian forces were pushed back in late 2022, drones and missiles have remained a constant danger there.

Russia also launched a short-lived missile attack on Kyiv overnight, but there have been no reports of injuries or damage.

In July, United States President Donald Trump said he would implement “severe tariffs” on Russia unless a peace deal is reached by early September. Last week, Trump said he would give Putin 10 to 12 days, meaning Trump wants peace efforts to make progress by Thursday to Saturday.

So far, the Kremlin has rejected the idea of a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he wanted peace but his demands for ending Moscow’s military offensive were “unchanged”.

Those demands include Ukraine abandoning some of its own territory and ending its ambitions to join NATO.