KYIV, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Ukrainian state oil and gas firm Naftogaz said on Tuesday that a Russian strike had targeted one of its facilities in a western region, causing a fire and halting operations.
Ukraine's Naftogaz says Russia struck its facility in western Ukraine
Impact of Russian Attacks on Ukrainian Energy
KYIV, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Ukrainian state oil and gas firm Naftogaz said on Tuesday that a Russian strike had targeted one of its facilities in a western region, causing a fire and halting operations.
Details of the Attack
Russia has sharply intensified its bombardments of Ukraine's energy system since it invaded its neighbour in 2022.
Brody and the Druzhba Pipeline
In a statement, the company added that it was the 15th deliberate attack on its infrastructure since the start of 2026.
Response and Safety Measures
"The impact caused a fire at the site. For safety reasons and to protect people and prevent environmental pollution, the company's specialists immediately stopped the technological processes at the facility," Naftogaz CEO Sergii Korteskyi wrote on Facebook.
Since last autumn, Russia has been deliberately attacking Ukrainian gas production and distribution, forcing Kyiv to compensate for the losses with large-scale imports. The central bank governor said late last year that Ukraine lost about half of its gas output.
Naftogaz did not name the attacked facility, but earlier on Tuesday, the emergency service reported a fire after an attack on an industrial facility in western Lviv region, and local officials in the city of Brody warned the population about pollution due to the burning of oil products.
Brody is where the Druzhba oil pipeline, which supplies Russian oil to Eastern European countries, meets the Brody-Odesa oil pipeline, which was built to connect Druzhba with oil terminals on the Black Sea.
The attack is a very rare case of Russian forces attacking an oil pipeline through which Russia supplies oil to Europe. Ukraine, however, has repeatedly attacked Druzhba on Russian territory, causing oil pumping to stop and sparking protests from Hungary and Slovakia.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
