Ukraine launches one of its most far-reaching drone campaigns of the war, striking targets from St. Petersburg to locations more than 2,000 kilometers from Ukraine, beyond the Ural Mountains. The attacks come as Russian commentators openly accuse Vladimir Putin of misleading the public about the scale of the damage.
Among the targets hit overnight was a massive fuel storage facility in Krasnodar Krai, one of the largest in southern Russia. Russian military bloggers warn that growing attacks on fuel infrastructure and logistics routes are beginning to threaten supplies needed to sustain frontline operations.
The fuel crisis in occupied Crimea continues to deepen. Residents are reportedly leaving the peninsula in search of gasoline, only to find shortages spreading into neighboring Russian regions. Some stores have introduced purchase limits as shelves empty, while occupation authorities have established a hotline for people seeking assistance leaving Crimea.
Russia’s oil refining sector is facing mounting pressure as repeated Ukrainian strikes disrupt production, storage, and transportation networks. Yet at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin attempted to downplay recent attacks, claiming Ukrainian forces had struck little more than a coal storage area. Videos and satellite imagery tell a different story, showing significant damage to oil facilities and Baltic Fleet infrastructure near St. Petersburg.
Meanwhile, prominent Russian military bloggers acknowledge that Russian forces are losing ground in several sectors of the front. Despite the deteriorating situation, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov continues to insist that Moscow’s objectives remain unchanged, repeating Kremlin claims about “protecting Russian speakers” in Ukraine.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are expanding their ability to interdict Russian logistics in the south. Reports indicate growing Ukrainian fire control over routes stretching from Melitopol toward Chonhar, further complicating the movement of supplies and reinforcements between occupied Crimea and Russian forces operating in southern Kherson Oblast.
As fuel shortages spread, logistics networks come under increasing pressure, and Russian officials struggle to explain away visible damage, the economic and military costs of the war continue to grow across Russia and occupied territories.