Authorities in Siberia’s Kemerovo region placed entry restrictions on trucks on Wednesday due to security concerns, following Ukrainian drone strikes that reportedly halted operations at Russia’s largest oil refinery this week.
Citing the threat of “potential drone attacks,” Kemerovo region Governor Ilya Seredyuk announced that only trucks carrying documentation from local companies are now allowed to enter the regional capital.
Traffic police and National Guard troops are enforcing the ban, the governor said, and they will also be accompanied by veterans of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“Our heroes are proving once again that their experience and skills can honorably serve the fatherland here in civilian life as well,” Seredyuk wrote in a post on Telegram.
He published a video showing traffic police officers accompanied by men in military fatigues stopping semi-trucks on a highway and inspecting the documents of drivers.
Kemerovo lies more than 3,000 kilometers (over 1,800 miles) from Russia’s border with Ukraine and 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the Omsk region, where the country’s largest oil refinery was damaged in a drone attack on Monday.
On Tuesday, the Kemerovo region reportedly began setting up bomb shelters in the event of a Ukrainian air attack.
Seredyuk said he had contacted authorities in the Omsk region and tasked his administration with “making maximum use of the experience of our neighbors” in repelling potential drone attacks.
Last summer, Ukraine carried out a covert campaign known as “Operation Spider’s Web” in which drones were launched from civilian trucks in five Russian regions, including Siberia’s Irkutsk region and Far East Russia’s Amur region, and attacked Russian military airfields.
