Blaze at oil storage facility in west Russia

Moscow: Russian authorities say a fire has engulfed an oil storage facility in western Russia.

The Emergencies Ministry said a huge blaze at the depot in the city of Bryansk erupted early Monday. Its cause wasn’t immediately clear.

The oil depot is owned by Transneft-Druzhba, a subsidiary of the Russian state-controlled company Transneft that operates the western-bound Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline carrying crude oil to Europe. It wasn’t clear if the depot was part of the pipeline infrastructure and whether the blaze could affect the deliveries.

Russian news reported that another oil storage facility in Bryansk also caught fire early Monday and that the cause wasn’t immediately known.

Bryansk is located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the border with Ukraine, where Moscow has waged a military campaign for two months. Last month, two Ukrainian helicopter gunships hit an oil reservoir in Russia’s Belgorod region that borders Ukraine, causing a fire.