A massive fire erupted at an oil reservoir in Crimea after it was hit by a drone, a Russia-appointed official there reported Saturday. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of the Black Sea peninsula's port city of Sevastopol, posted videos and photos of the blaze on his Telegram channel. Razvozhayev said the fire was assigned the highest ranking in terms of how complicated it will be to extinguish. He did not say whether the drone he cited as causing the fire was Ukrainian. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considered illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country is seeking to reclaim the peninsula during Russia's current full-scale invasion. The incident comes a day after Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine, killing at least 23 people. Almost all of the victims died when two missiles slammed into an apartment building. Three children were among the dead. Razvozhayev said the oil reservoir fire did not cause any casualties and would not hinder fuel supplies in Sevastopol. The city has been subject to regular attack attempts with drones, especially in recent weeks. Earlier this week, Razvozhayev reported that the Russian military destroyed a Ukrainian sea drone that attempted to attack the harbor and another one blew up, shattering windows in several apartment buildings, but not inflicting any other damage. Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the oil reservoir fire. After previous attacks on Crimea, Kyiv usually stopped short of openly claiming responsibility but emphasized that the country had the right to strike any target in response to Russian aggression.

Fires burned and ammunition exploded at a depot in Crimea on Wednesday, a day after the latest suspected Ukrainian attack on a military site in the Russia-annexed peninsula, highlighting the challenges facing Moscow. The peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014, was once a secure base that Moscow’s forces have used to launch attacks — and it was a staging ground for the start of the Feb. 24 invasion. But in recent days, explosions have destroyed several Russian planes at an air base in Crimea, and munitions blew up Tuesday. Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines after the most recent blasts Tuesday while Russia blamed “sabotage.” The spate of attacks represented the latest setback for Moscow, which began its invasion with hopes of taking the capital of Kyiv and much of the country in a lightning blitz but soon became bogged down in the face of fiercer than expected resistance from Ukrainian forces. As the war nears the half-year mark, the sides are now engaged in a war of attrition, fighting village to village, largely in the country's east. The attacks in Crimea could open a new front that would represent a significant escalation in the war and further stretch Russia's military resources. “Russian commanders will highly likely be increasingly concerned with the apparent deterioration in security across Crimea, which functions as rear base area for the occupation," Britain's Defense ministry wrote on Twitter. But it was not clear whether the attacks in Crimea would unblock the stalemate, as Ukrainian and Russian forces grind each other down in a war that has driven millions from their homes, disrupted food supplies worldwide and occasionally raised concerns about a nuclear accident. Read:Ukrainians flee grim life in Russian-occupied Kherson On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to travel to Ukraine for a meeting with Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss getting out grain shipments that are critical to feeding the world's hungry. They are also expected to talk about a possible fact-finding mission to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling. Tuesday's explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot near Dzhankoi in Crimea, leading to chaotic scenes when around 3,000 people had to be evacuated. As a vivid reminder of Russia's vulnerability in Crimea, the peninsula's regional leader, Sergei Aksyonov, said that authorities were still fighting the fires Wednesday with a helicopter, as minutions continued to detonate. He said that a search for perpetrators of the attack was underway. The Kommersant business paper also reported explosions Tuesday at a base in Gvardeyskoye. By Wednesday, there still was no comment from the Russian authorities. The British intelligence report noted that Gvardeyskoye and Dzhankoi “are home to two of the most important Russian military airfields in Crimea.” A week earlier, Russia's military came under pressure on the peninsula when Ukraine said nine Russian warplanes were destroyed following explosions at Crimea's Saki air base. The massive explosions sent plumes of smoke rising over nearby beaches and caused sunbathers to flee. At the time, Moscow suggested that the blasts were accidental, perhaps caused by a careless smoker, an explanation that drew mockery from Ukrainian authorities who hinted at their involvement in the attack but didn't directly claim responsibility. On the eastern front, the stalemate continued, with the shelling causing ever more death and destruction. In the Donetsk region that is the current focus of the Russian offensive, two civilians were killed and seven others were wounded by recent Russian shelling of several towns and villages. Meanwhile, in the south, Russian long-range bombers fired cruise missiles at the Odesa region overnight, leaving four people injured, according to regional administration spokesman Oleh Bratchuk. In Mykolaiv, also in the south, two Russian missiles damaged a university building early Wednesday but injured no one. The Russian forces also shelled Kharkiv in the northeast and various parts of the surrounding region overnight, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure but inflicting no casualties.

Explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people. Russia blamed the blasts in the village of Mayskoye on an “act of sabotage,” without naming the perpetrators. Separately, the Russian business newspaper Kommersant quoted residents as saying plumes of black smoke also rose over an air base in Crimea’s Gvardeyskoye. Ukraine stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for any of the blasts, including those that destroyed nine Russian planes at another Crimean air base last week. Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has used it to launch attacks against Ukraine in the war that began nearly six months ago. If Ukrainian forces were behind the explosions, that would represent a significant escalation in the war. Such attacks could also indicate that Ukrainian operatives are able to penetrate deeply into Russian-occupied territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines when he included individuals “who oppose the occupiers in their rear” in a list of people he thanked for supporting the country’s war effort. In a video address Tuesday night, he also warned people not go near Russian military installations and storage sites for ammunition and equipment. Read: Iran submits a ‘written response’ in nuclear deal talks In another reported act of sabotage, Russia’s Tass news service quoted the FSB security agency as saying Ukrainian operatives blew up six high-voltage transmission towers earlier this month in Russia’s Kursk region, close to Ukraine. The Kremlin has demanded that Kyiv recognize Crimea as part of Russia as a condition for ending the fighting, while Ukraine has vowed to drive Moscow’s forces from the peninsula on the Black Sea. Videos posted on social media showed thick columns of smoke rising over raging flames in Mayskoye, and a series of explosions could be heard. The Russian Defense Ministry said a power plant, electrical lines, railroad tracks and apartment buildings were damaged. “We came out to take a look and saw clouds of smoke coming from the cowshed where the military warehouses are,” said resident Maksim Moldovskiy. “We stayed there until about 7-8 a.m. Everything was exploding — flashes, fragments, debris falling on us. Then the emergency guys came and said they were evacuating everybody.” Crimea’s regional leader, Sergei Aksyonov, said two people were injured and more than 3,000 evacuated from two villages. “The detonations are rather strong. Ammunition is strewn all over the ground,” he said, adding that several homes burned down. In what may have been retaliation for the attacks in Crimea, Russian warplanes fired missiles at a military airfield in Zhytomyr, 87 miles (140 kilometers) west of Kyiv, damaging a runway and vehicles, Ukrainian officials reported. Crimea is a popular summer destination for Russian tourists, and last week’s explosions at Crimea’s Saki air base sent sunbathers on beaches fleeing as flames and pillars of smoke rose over the horizon. Ukrainian officials warned Tuesday that Crimea would not be spared the ravages of war. Rather than a travel destination, “Crimea occupied by Russians is about warehouse explosions and a high risk of death for invaders and thieves,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter. Read: Western states hit with more cuts to Colorado River water Russia blamed last week’s explosions on an accidental detonation of munitions, but satellite photos and other evidence — including the dispersed blast sites — pointed to a Ukrainian attack, perhaps with anti-ship missiles, military analysts said. Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update that vessels in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet are in an “extremely defensive posture” in the waters off Crimea, with ships barely venturing out of sight of the coastline. Russia’s flagship Moskva went down in the Black Sea in April, and last month Ukrainian forces retook strategic Snake Island. The Russian fleet’s “limited effectiveness undermines Russia’s overall invasion strategy,” the British said. “This means Ukraine can divert resources to press Russian ground forces elsewhere.” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu charged that in addition to supplying arms to Ukraine, Western allies have provided detailed intelligence and instructors to help Ukraine operate weapons that can hit deep in occupied territory. “Western intelligence agencies not only have provided target coordinates for launching strikes, but Western specialists also have overseen the input of those data into weapons systems,” Shoigu said. In other developments: — A U.N.-chartered ship loaded with Ukrainian grain set out for the hunger-stricken Horn of Africa in the first such relief delivery of the war. The shipment was made possible by an internationally brokered deal to free up grain trapped in Ukrainian ports by the fighting and establish safe corridors through the mined water of the Black Sea. — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to travel to Ukraine for a meeting Thursday in the western city of Lviv with Zelenskyy and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They are expected to discuss the grain shipments and a possible fact-finding mission to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling. Guterres will also visit Odesa on Friday. During Guterres’ last trip to Ukraine, in April, Russia forces launched an airstrike on Kyiv while he was visiting the capital. — Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the United States is giving more than $68 million in additional funding to the U.N. World Food Program “to purchase, move, and store up to 150,000 metric tons of Ukrainian wheat to help respond to the global food crisis.” — Russian shelling killed at least two civilians in the industrial Donbas region in the east and in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast, Ukrainian authorities said.