Ukraine drones target Russian oil infrastructure as fuel crisis adds political pressure to Putin
A Ukrainian airstrike hit an oil terminal in St. Petersburg on Saturday, Russian officials said, as Kyiv continued to bomb Russian oil infrastructure.
Almost daily attacks on Russian oil facilities have created a fuel crisis and put political pressure on the Kremlin as the Ukraine-wide offensive reaches its fifth year.
Governor Alexander Beglov said the district of the city of Kirovsky on the Baltic Sea was affected. He also said that the air defense has shot down 72 Ukrainian drones in the second largest city in Russia and the surrounding regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as part of Ukraine’s “long-term sanctions” against Russia. He said that the Ukrainian forces also attacked the army on the island of Kronstadt, off the coast of St.
“Ukraine’s defense forces hit the oil infrastructure in the port, receiving money for the Russian war, and there was also the attack on Kronstadt – a military priority,” he said in a post on Telegram.
Kirovsky district of St. Petersburg was attacked in June, before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Petersburg.
The Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, has been hit hard by heavy strikes, prompting local authorities to halt the sale of fuel to civilians. The attack in Ukraine on Saturday killed one person and wounded two others, including a 10-year-old child, Moscow Governor Sergei Aksyonov said.
The invasion of Ukraine brings the war home
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Ukraine’s strikes on Russian power plants as “not serious,” and insisted that the war will continue until his goals are met.
He described the attack on Russian forces as an attempt by Ukraine to distract attention from its losses on the battlefield, although analysts say Russian military progress has been hampered in recent months.
On Friday, Putin visited the Russian military headquarters directing the war in Ukraine and received a report on the capture of the town of Kostyantynivka, after weeks of intense street fighting. He hailed it as an important step to capture the nearby towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the remaining key strongholds in the so-called “forest belt” of heavily fortified cities in the Ukrainian-held Donetsk region.
The capture of Kostyantynivka, a major transport and industrial center, is “very important,” Putin, dressed in military fatigues, said on television.
In the forum on Saturday, Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, first deputy of the General Staff of the Army of Russia, said that Ukrainian troops were pushed back a few kilometers and fighting was continuing on the outskirts of the nearby town of Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka.
“The city is now fully under our control. Southern Army Group units are completing the clearing of city blocks, exterminating small groups and Ukrainian fighters who may still be hiding in basements and ruins,” he said.
Zelenskyy denied that Russia took over the city. “It’s another Russian lie, an attempt to produce some kind of story,” he wrote on social media on Saturday. “If Kostiantynivka was under Russia, maybe Putin wouldn’t have a problem meeting me there to find a way to communicate to end this war. But the truth is, he won’t cross the front line – the truth is very different from Putin’s words.”
Zelenskyy’s post appeared to appeal to US President Donald Trump. “Now, on the eve of America’s Independence Day, Putin has chosen to lie to the world and to the President of the United States about the situation ahead.”
Putin appears to believe that his government can prevent the fuel crisis from undermining his authority and support for the war he launched more than four years ago. At the very least, the attack brought the war home even more painfully for millions of Russians, undermining Putin’s narrative of the conflict as something that does not affect the lives of ordinary people in his country.
The border city of Belgorod, which has also been hit by Ukrainian airstrikes, was left without power on Saturday due to nighttime attacks, local media reported.
Meanwhile, eight people were injured after a Russian airstrike hit residential buildings in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, including two children, local authorities said on Saturday.
