NIGHT OF FURY
Russian oil refinery explodes in drone strike & huge fires burn in Moscow as Putin blitzed on night of Tucker interview
Dramatic pictures show bright flames and dark smoke pluming over the Russian night sky
UKRAINE struck another Russian oil refinery in a kamikaze drone attack as Putin was blitzed on the same night as his interview with Tucker Carlson.
Footage shows the Ilsky plant ablaze in the Krasnodar region where giant explosions triggered an inferno.
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Eight people including two children were also injured after a gas pipeline explosion in Perm region, which destroyed a freight train and a residential block on Thursday night.
And in Moscow the roofs of three six-story buildings near the Airport metro station were ablaze in a mysterious fire engulfing 43,000 square feet - the largest residential blaze in the city since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
The latest blitz against the Russian despot comes as his controversial chat with TV pundit Tucker Carlson was aired.
The shameless tyrant spoke for two hours - his first interview with Western media since his troops invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Read more on Putin vs Carlson
There was some hope for wrongly jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich after Putin suggested he could be released.
The US journalist had his detention extended once again after being locked up last year by Vlad on bogus spy charges.
Over 1,000 independent Russian journalists have fled the country to escape Putin’s sweeping censorship laws that criminalise any critical coverage of the war.
Putin also boasted about Russia's 'unstoppable' weapons, threatened World War 3 and blamed Boris Johnson for the war in Ukraine in his rambling interview.
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But on the night it aired, it was Russia that was ablaze.
Ukraine previously attacked the Ilsky plant in May last year which is around 30 miles inland from Vladimir Putin’s £1 billion private clifftop palace in Gelendzhik overlooking the Black Sea.
How Tucker Carlson went from star anchor to 'Putin's PR man' with ‘censored puffpiece' for X…which Russians can't access
The plant is crucial to oil supplies at the port of Novorossiysk which supplies naval and civilian vessels.
Last night's 2am strike bypassed Russian air defences and came as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky ousted his commander in chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi to replace him with no-nonsense Russian-born commander Alexander Syrsky.
It is the eighth major strike this year by Ukraine on Putin’s oil and gas facilities inside Russia.
Russian gasoline exports plunged by 37% and diesel exports by 23% in January due to the strikes.
Local residents reported on social networks that they heard the sounds of flying drones and explosions, but the version of a UAV attack on the refinery has not been officially confirmed.
Russian air defences claimed to have intercepted and destroyed 19 drones coming from Ukraine.
The Russian authorities did not immediately admit that the cause was a Ukrainian drone attack.
A source said: “There are no casualties.
“Rescue services are continuing their work at the scene to complete the elimination of the emergency and determine the causes of the incident.”
In Perm, huge flames erupted on a major gas pipeline in Kueda.
It triggered explosions and a fire in three freight wagons on a nearby train.
People were evacuated from nearby housing.
The cause was unclear and the region is far from the war zone, but Russia has been beset by sabotage attacks on oil and gas facilities linked to the war in Ukraine.
The Russian Investigative Committee announced a criminal case to establish the cause of the explosion and blaze.
A firefighting train had to be sent to the scene.
The cause of the blaze in Moscow on Chernyakhovsky Street is under investigation.
Fifteen people were rescued from the blaze including Russian singer Natalia Shturm, 57 who claimed tycoon Roman Abramovich, also 57, was in love with her at school.
Two Ka-32 helicopters were deployed at the inferno.
More than 130 people and 41 pieces of equipment were used to bring the blaze under control.
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The gas pipeline that exploded in Perm region belongs to Kremlin-friendly Lukoil energy giant.
In the Moscow fire, hundreds of people were evacuated.
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