Ukraine chokes fuel to Crimea, Russian consumers, targeting military supply

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At the same time, Ukraine has continued to cause fuel shortages in Russia itself, striking refineries deep inside the country, including, for the first time, the Omsk refinery in Siberia, Russia’s largest, 2,500km (1,553 miles) from the Ukrainian border. Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert Brovdi said his forces had struck 19 Russian tankers, a cargo ship and a ferry between July 6 and 8, including nine tankers on the night of July 7. Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk told newspaper Suspilne that Russia had rerouted fuel supplies to Crimea after Ukraine deprived it of overland routes. “They had few options left. It’s either a land corridor or a sea connection,” Pletenchuk said. “As far as we know, they don’t use the Kerch Bridge for such transportation in the necessary volumes,” he said, referring to the bridge connecting Crimea to Russia. Ukraine detonated a truck on the bridge in 2022, setting alight a fuel train that had been travelling alongside it and demonstrating the risk of using the bridge for large volumes of fuel. Ukraine pivoted to attacking Crimea in the past few weeks after disabling the oil offloading terminal at Novorossiysk, on the opposite Russian coast, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times. “We were slowing down the militarisation of our peninsula occupied by Russia,” he said. “We cut off the logistics and took control of the fuel and energy complex. We showed what it means to operationally control the sky at a specific point, at a specific time.” The Ukrainian Presidential Office in Crimea said these strikes had caused “a management crisis on the peninsula”. In Sevastopol, fuel has stopped being sold to civilians, and more than a dozen Crimean regions are suffering from electricity blackouts. Ukraine continued strikes on the peninsula in the past week, destroying seven Sukhoi aircraft and two sheds containing Shahed aerial drones at the Saky airfield on July 3, the Kerch oil transhipment terminal on July 6 and three hangars at the Guardsman airfield on the same day. Ukraine also kept up pressure on Russia, launching what mayor Sergei Sobyanin said was its largest strike on Moscow in two years. More than 400 Ukrainian drones were downed while heading for the city on July 7, which was the first day of a NATO summit in Ankara. “When our drones weren’t flying to Moscow and St Petersburg, [Russian president Vladimir]  Putin didn’t think much about it. He understood that the war was far from the Kremlin,” Zelenskyy told the Financial Times. “When not a hundred drones, but a thousand would start flying to Moscow, and when he would feel and see this, he would be advised to move somewhere beyond the Urals. This would be a moment like a new page on the path to ending the war. Ukraine struck several energy targets during the week, furthering its twin goals of starving Russia of petrol and export revenue from oil. The SBU said it struck and set alight the St Petersburg oil terminal on July 4, which it described as “one of the largest oil product transshipment terminals in the Baltic region”. Zelenskyy posted video purporting to show the terminal in flames. On Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces had struck the Slavneft Yanos refinery in Yaroslavl, 700km (430 miles) from Ukraine, the Ust-Luga refinery on the Baltic Sea, and the Omsk Refinery. Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down 613 of 625 Ukrainian drones detected in the airspace overnight. Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russia had lost 42.7 percent of its refining capacity over the past year, and suffered $13.5bn of damage to oil infrastructure. These strikes have cumulatively caused petrol and diesel shortages in the Russian market, with consumers in urban hubs lining up to fill their cars. During the week, Ukraine also struck the Kremny EL Group in Bryansk, which it said manufactured microchips, semiconductors and other electronics for the armed forces. Zelenskyy said the air war would prove “decisive”, because in 2026 Ukraine’s ground troops had effectively stopped Russia’s slow advance of the last two years. Independent assessments have suggested that Russia gained a total of 97 square kilometres (37 square miles) in the first six months of the year. “The war is ongoing, but the front line is no longer moving. When the front line is almost not moving, and the enemy cannot invade by sea, the sky remains,” Zelenskyy said. US President Donald Trump handed Zelenskyy a major victory at the NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday, saying he would license Ukraine to produce interceptor missiles for anti-air systems. Zelenskyy has been campaigning for a licence to build Patriot interceptors, which he believes Ukraine can do faster and more cheaply than the US or European manufacturers. But Zelenskyy said Patriots ultimately are not the answer for European air defence, announcing his intention to develop FREYA, a Ukrainian-designed anti-ballistic system like Patriot “but with a higher production capacity and at a lower cost”. Zelenskyy’s commander-in-chief warned against dismissing Russia too easily. “It’s still too early to talk about a qualitative turning point in the war,” Oleksandr Syrskii wrote on his Telegram messaging channel. “The aggressor is showing signs of exhaustion, but retains significant offensive potential,” adding that Russia “plans to extend the front line, which already exceeds 1,250 kilometres (777 miles).” Putin relaunched the narrative that Moscow will overrun the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, four-fifths of which Russia already controls. In a televised meeting with his top generals on July 3, Putin was told that Russia has seized 3,000sq km (1,160sq miles) of Ukraine so far this year, and “liberated” 133 settlements. His commander in chief, Valery Gerasimov, also claimed to control the cities of Kupiansk in Kharkiv, and Kostiantynivka in Donetsk. The Institute for the Study of War, which uses geolocated footage to assess advances, estimated that Russian forces have a presence in 2.4 percent of Kupiansk and 37 percent of Kostiantynivka – and most of that in the form of infiltrations, not firm control. The Ukrainian military has estimated the number of Russian servicemen in Kostiantynivka at between 100 and 250. Putin was told that Russian forces seized 636sq km (245sq miles) of Ukraine in June alone. The ISW estimates the real number at 30sq km (11sq miles). Kostiantynivka is politically important to the Kremlin because it is the first of four heavily fortified cities, including Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, which Moscow must seize to take control of Donetsk – which Putin considers a puppet state and has repeatedly prioritised. “The capture of Kostyantynovka by the troops of the South battlegroup opens a direct road for further advance to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, other fortified areas in the Donbas, and is, of course, the key to liberating the entire territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Putin said. The Donbas includes Donetsk and Luhansk, which Putin mistakenly claimed to have taken in its entirety. “I understand that we should no longer speak of the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk-Kostyantynovka line, but simply of the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line,” Putin told the gathering. 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