A fire raged at a Russian oil facility near the Ukrainian border in the early hours of Monday, a report from the TASS news agency said.

The report, which cited local disaster response officials, said storage tanks in Bryansk were burning.

Fire crews were already responding at the site of the fire.

One of the storage facilities belonged to the oil company Transneft Druzhba, which owned one of the pipelines that exported Russian oil to Europe.

Videos shared online, but taken from a fair distance, showed flames leaping into the sky. The fire department had reported no deaths.

No cause for the fire had been given because the depot was very close to the Ukrainian border.

Still, questions had arisen about whether the fire was linked to the fighting that Russia’s invasion of its neighbour had prompted.

Earlier this month, Russian officials blamed a Ukrainian helicopter attack after an oil depot burst into flames in Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border. Ukraine denied responsibility.

(dpa/NAN)