Zelensky says Ryazan oil refinery hit for second consecutive day

Attacks also reported on facilities in Perm, Tatarstan

Russia targets Izmail, Chornomorsk grain export ports during wheat harvest season

Trucks burned in a Russian attack in the Zaporizhzhia region. [EPA/Yonhap]
Trucks burned in a Russian attack in the Zaporizhzhia region. [EPA/Yonhap]

Russia and Ukraine continued trading strikes on each other's oil facilities and grain export ports Monday (local time), even as both sides had just held talks with a US presidential envoy over a potential end to the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media that Ukraine had struck an oil refinery in Russia's Ryazan region — the second consecutive day of attacks on the facility, following a strike on Sunday. Ryazan lies about 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and is home to some of Russia's major oil refining infrastructure.

Zelensky said the strikes also targeted oil processing facilities in Russia's Perm region and the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as a drone launch site in the Kursk region. Regional authorities in Russia said one person was killed in a drone strike in the Belgorod region.

Russia announced it had struck the port of Izmail on the Danube River and the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk — two key hubs for Ukrainian grain exports. The attacks came as Russia has been intensifying its targeting of grain export infrastructure during Ukraine's wheat harvest season.

According to Ukrainian consulting firm APK-Inform, Ukraine exported 433,000 metric tons of wheat, corn and barley in the week of Aug. 27 to Sept. 2 — an 80 percent increase from the previous week, though still well below normal export volumes.

Earlier, Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for US President Donald Trump, and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner visited Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend, meeting separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky to discuss peace proposals. It was Witkoff's eighth visit to Russia and the third time he had traveled there alongside Kushner. The visit to the Ukrainian capital marked the first time the two had been to Kyiv since the war began.


won@heraldcorp.com