Ukraine drones hit Siberian refinery as Kazakh leader urges end to war

Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery in Siberia on July 25 and disrupted an athletics competition in Russia's Urals region, while Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the war in Ukraine should end during a summit in Omsk.

Moscow said Ukraine launched more than 300 drones into Russia, including against distant regions. The governor of the Tyumen region in Siberia said a local oil refinery was set on fire. Russia's athletics federation said an all-Russian competition in Yekaterinburg was halted because of drone threats.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed the Siberia strike. He also said Ukraine had hit a military factory in the Kirov region for a second consecutive day, after local authorities said an earlier attack there killed five people. Kyiv says its retaliatory strikes are intended to damage Russia's war effort and pressure Moscow to negotiate.

Russian-installed authorities in occupied southern Ukraine said a Ukrainian strike on the Azov Sea town of Kyrylivka killed 12 people, including four children, at what they described as a tourist camp. Yevgeny Balitsky, the Kremlin-installed head of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region, said eight people were missing and rescue work was continuing. Kyiv had not commented on that strike. Moscow also reported one death in occupied Kherson and two deaths in Russian border villages.

Ukraine said Russian attacks killed five people in eastern and southern Ukraine. Zelensky said a Russian strike on Sumy killed three people at a site belonging to the private courier company Nova Poshta, and said the attack included a second strike on the same site.

In Omsk, Tokayev told Putin in televised comments that young people were dying and that the fighting had to stop. He said the conflict should be frozen and suggested a return to Istanbul talks before moving toward what he called a long-awaited peace. Putin said he would inform Tokayev about the details of the war.

The Kremlin has said it intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine. US-led talks to end the fighting have stalled. The United Nations has warned that civilians have recently been dying in larger numbers in the almost four-and-a-half-year war.

In Yekaterinburg, Russian online retailer Wildberries said it evacuated staff because of a drone threat but that its facility was not damaged. Russia also said it would extend a fuel export ban until the end of the year, after Ukrainian strikes on oil depots and refineries caused fuel shortages and queues at petrol stations.