Firefighters extinguished a blaze at a Russian oil facility hit by the latest Ukrainian drone strike that took place on the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to be blowing out his birthday cake candles.
Putin was born on October 7, 1952, and social media users have noted that Kyiv has delivered him an unwanted birthday present.
It comes amid an ongoing incursion into Kursk and repeated drone attacks on Russia that have resulted in high losses of military equipment.
“An oil depot is on fire in Russian-occupied Feodosia Crimea. Today is Putin’s birthday—let’s hope there are very big fireworks, across the occupied territories, to celebrate,” wrote Kyiv Post journalist Jason Jay Smart on X, formerly Twitter.
Vladimir Putin delivers a video address in Moscow on October 4, 2023. October 7 marks the Russian president’s 72nd birthday.
MIKHAIL METZEL/Getty Images
Telegram channels reported explosions around 4.30 a.m. Monday at the Marine Oil Terminal in Feodosia—the largest in Crimea for handling oil products, which had been previously targeted in March. Nearby airfields in Belbek and Saky were attacked overnight according to Russian-language Telegram channels.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.
Journalist Tim White posted that “Ukraine gave the indicted war criminal a birthday present this morning,” writing on X that the Russian leader’s 72nd birthday “started with a bang. Well many bangs actually.”
Ukraine’s General Staff said it had carried out the strike and that “measures to undermine the military-economic potential of the Russian Federation continue.”
Putin’s closest allies congratulated the Russian president on his birthday, with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko expressing his hope for “the expansion of multifaceted ties between our countries.”
The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on Telegram “every resident of the Chechen Republic is deeply grateful to him.”
Ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin posted on Telegram “God save the Tsar!” referring to Putin, who is a staunch supporter of the Ukraine war.
However, other social media users took a more sarcastic tone.
“It’s Putin’s birthday today. He turned 72. Millions of people all over the world wish him one thing. What do you wish him?” wrote Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko.
“Wishing a very happy (72nd) and final birthday to Vladimir Putin!” posted Ian Garner, a Russia analyst.
Eastern European news outlet NEXTA reported that October 7 also marks the two-month anniversary of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast where Kyiv has said it has captured around 500 miles of Russian territory.
“It is reported that there was an order to push the Ukrainians out of Russian territory by Putin’s birthday, but the idea failed,” NEXTA reported.
Meanwhile, news that Russia has captured the town of Vulhedar and made incremental gains around Pokrovsk has come amid a report it had lost at least five divisions’ worth of armored vehicles and tanks, the Institute for the Study of War said.
The Washington, D.C., think tank said on Sunday that Russia’s military command may not be able to accept the current rate of vehicle loss given the constraints in defense industrial production, stockpile limits, and “failure to achieve operationally significant territorial advances through mechanized maneuver.”
This comes as independent outlet Agentstvo reported Monday how Putin had stopped flying to his summer residence in southern Russia because of the security concerns posed by repeated Ukrainian drone attacks.
The outlet said that the number of his annual trips to Sochi had dwindled from between 24 and 36 visits in previous years, to 13 in the first year of his full-scale invasion in 2022, and eight last year. He has only made one trip there this year, on March 6, to meet Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
