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The main goal of Ukraine’s recent attacks on Russian regions is to interfere with the upcoming presidential election, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on Wednesday.
“The main goal, I have no doubt about it, is to - if not to disrupt the presidential elections in Russia - then at least somehow interfere with the normal process of expressing the will of citizens,” Putin told Russia's RIA state news agency and Rossiya-1 state television in a wide-ranging interview.
Putin, who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, is nearly certain to win the March 15 to 17 presidential vote.
His comments came as drone strikes targeted Russia’s oil refineries for the second day in a row on Wednesday, with one sparking a fire and injuring several people after it struck a facility in the Ryazan region, officials said.
“The Ryazan oil refinery was attacked by a drone,” Pavel Malkov, the governor of the Ryazan region that lies some 200 kilometres southeast of Moscow, wrote on Telegram.
“According to preliminary information, there are injuries”, he wrote.
A fire broke out at the refinery following the strike and "all rescue services are working at the scene,” Malkov said.
A drone targeting another oil refinery in the Leningrad region near the second city of Saint Petersburg in northwest Russia was shot down, Alexander Drozdenko, the regional governor wrote on Telegram, adding there was no damage or victims.
On Tuesday, Ukraine launched one of its most significant drone strikes on Russia so far.
Two Russian energy sites, including one of the largest oil refineries some 800 kilometres from the border, were hit in the strikes, Russian officials said.
A major oil refinery in Kstovo, just outside the city of Nizhny Novgorod, was hit by a drone early on Tuesday morning, the regional governor said.
Another drone crashed into a fuel depot and started a fire in Oryol, around 160 kilometres from the border, according to the regional governor.
(With agencies)