Ukrainian drones strike Russia's petrochemical capital in overnight assault

Ukrainian airstrikes hit the central Russian city of Nizhnekamsk on Sunday, local authorities said, with media reporting a fire in one of the country's biggest petrochemical plants.

"Early this morning, Nizhnekamsk was the target of a massive and prolonged attack by enemy drones. As a result of this attack, facilities in the industrial zone were damaged," the city's mayor, Radmir Belyaev, wrote on Telegram.

A residential building was also damaged, he added.

Read moreUS proposed Ukraine cedes Donbas in exchange for joining NATO, Zelensky says

Nizhnekamsk, a city of about 240,000 people, is often dubbed the "petrochemical capital" of Tatarstan. It is home to oil refineries and a major petrochemical plant.

Authorities in the region, quoted by Russian media, said three people were wounded.

Ukrainian and Russian media said the strikes caused a fire at the Nizhnekamskneftekhim (NKNK) petrochemical complex, owned by leading Russian company Sibur.

Russia strikes targets across Ukraine as Kyiv launches nearly 1,200 drones

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.

One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.

01:28

Videos published on social networks, which AFP has not authenticated, showed flames and thick smoke rising above the industrial site.

An engineer at an electricity substation was killed in separate Ukrainian strikes overnight on Taganrog, an industrial port city in the Rostov-on-Don region, which borders Ukraine, regional governor Yuri Slyusar said.

Taganrog mayor Svetlana Kambulova said a fire at a substation had been put out and a local state of emergency had been declared.

Read moreMacron says limiting Ukraine aid would pave way to 'another war'

The defence ministry in Moscow said in a statement that it had shot down 533 Ukrainian drones between Saturday night and Sunday morning over a dozen regions of Russia and annexed Crimea.

There was no immediate response from Kyiv, which says it targets Russian industrial facilities in response to deadly Russian strikes on its own territory.