KYIV, Ukraine>> Ukrainian forces hit an important fuel pipeline in the Moscow region that supplies the Russian army, Ukraine’s military intelligence said Saturday, as Russia kept up a sustained campaign of massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The operation was carried out late Friday, according to a statement on the Telegram messaging channel. The agency, which is known by its acronym HUR, described it as a “serious blow” to Russia’s military logistics.

HUR said its forces struck the Koltsevoy pipeline, which spans 250 miles and supplies the Russian army with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from refineries in Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow.

The operation, which targeted infrastructure near Ramensky district, destroyed all three fuel lines, HUR said.

The pipeline was capable of transporting up to 3 million tons of jet fuel, 2.8 million tons of diesel and 1.6 million tons of gasoline annually, HUR said.

“Our strikes have had more impact than sanctions,” said Kyrylo Budanov, the head of HUR, referring to international sanctions on Russia imposed over its all-out war and the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday claimed its forces defeated a team of Ukrainian special forces that were rushed to the eastern front-line hot spot of Pokrovsk in a bid to stop Russian troops from pushing farther into the city.

It later posted videos showing two men it said were Ukrainians who surrendered in the embattled city. The videos show the men, one dressed in fatigues and the other in a dark green jacket, sat against a peeling wall in a dark room, as they speak of fierce fighting and encirclement by Russian forces.

The videos’ authenticity could not be verified, and there was no immediate public comment from Kyiv on the Russian ministry’s claims.

Russia and Ukraine have presented conflicting accounts of what is happening in Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last week that his forces had encircled the city’s Ukrainian defenders.

But Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Saturday that although the situation in Pokrovsk remains “hardest” for Ukrainian forces, who are trying to push Russian troops out of the city, there is no encirclement or blockade as Moscow has maintained.

“A comprehensive operation to destroy and push out enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing. The main burden lies on the shoulders of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly UAV operators and assault units,” Syrskyi said in a statement on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged Friday that some Russian units had infiltrated Pokrovsk but insisted that Ukraine is weeding them out.

Zelenskyy said Russia had deployed about 170,000 troops in Donetsk in a major push to capture the city and claim a major battlefield victory.

Putin is trying to persuade the United States, which wants him to seek a peace deal, that Ukraine can’t hold out against Russian military superiority. He also has stressed what he says is Russia’s improving nuclear capability as he refuses to budge from what he says are his country’s legitimate war aims.

A key goal for Moscow has been to take all of Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donbas, made up of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Kyiv still controls about one-tenth of the coal-rich region.

Elsewhere, a civilian died and 19 were wounded, including a 9-year-old girl, when Russia struck the southern Mykolaiv region with an Iskander ballistic missile Saturday morning, local official Vitaliy Kim said.

Another Russian strike early Saturday sparked a fire at a gas plant in the central Poltava region, Ukraine’s emergency service reported.