Ukraine’s Defense Forces struck a Russian Nebo-U long-range radar in occupied Sevastopol and several other military targets in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories during a series of overnight attacks on 13 August, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported.

The strikes are part of Ukraine’s broader “Middle-Strike” campaign, which targets Russian military infrastructure beyond the immediate front line.

Nebo-U radar hit in Sevastopol

The most significant overnight target was a Russian Nebo-U radar station in Sevastopol, occupied Crimea.

The Nebo-U is a Russian long-range, three-coordinate radar operating in the meter wavelength range. It is designed to detect and track airborne targets, including aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.

The General Staff said disabling the radar weakens Russia’s ability to detect and track incoming aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, potentially making it harder for Russian forces to detect future Ukrainian strikes and giving Ukrainian weapons a better chance of reaching their targets.

The Nebo-U is estimated to cost around $100 million, making it a high-value Russian surveillance system.

The radar strike supposedly came during a broader Ukrainian drone attack on Sevastopol that also damaged energy infrastructure, according to Russian occupation authorities. The attack caused a citywide blackout before power was later restored through a temporary setup. Ukrainian drones also reportedly targeted the Balaklava power plant, one of Crimea’s two main power stations.

Earlier strikes hit Crimean military infrastructure

The General Staff also reported strikes on Russian military infrastructure in occupied Crimea on 12 August, including a control tower at the Saky airfield.

Ukrainian forces also struck a communications relay near Chornomorske used to control Russian Geran and Gerbera strike drones, according to the General Staff. It said the strikes weaken Russia’s ability to operate the military airfield and control its attack drones.

Russian logistics and supply sites targeted

Ukrainian forces also struck a Russian drone control center near Myrne in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, a fuel and lubricants depot near Dovzhansk in occupied Luhansk Oblast, and an ammunition depot near Novyi Hai in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Another strike hit a Russian logistics and equipment depot near Kalanchak in occupied Kherson Oblast.

The General Staff said these strikes disrupt Russian logistics and reduce the military’s ability to accumulate and use ammunition, equipment, and personnel.

Strike reported inside Russia

Ukraine also reported striking a Russian personnel concentration area near Butyrky in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast.

The General Staff did not provide details on the weapons used, the scale of damage, or possible casualties at the individual sites.

The latest report is part of Ukraine’s continued campaign to strike Russian military infrastructure beyond the battlefield. The “Middle-Strike” concept focuses on targets that support Russia’s ability to conduct and sustain combat operations, including command, logistics, air defense, and other military facilities.

The General Staff said Ukrainian forces continue to carry out strikes against key Russian military targets.

A man was killed in an explosion in occupied Sevastopol on the morning of 13 August, according to the Russian outlet ASTRA and the local Telegram channel Emergency/Sevastopol.

The man's identity has not been officially confirmed, but Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels are circulating claims that he is Robert Shahieiev, deputy commander of the 4th separate submarine brigade of Russia's Black Sea Fleet — a former Ukrainian Navy officer who sided with Russia after the occupation of Crimea.

What happened

According to preliminary information from Russian sources, the man was walking down a set of stairs with a friend when the explosion occurred. He died of his injuries at the scene. The device is believed to have been planted in a trash bin next to a bench, per preliminary reports cited by Ukrainska Pravda.

The Russian Telegram channel "Baza" reported that the blast took place in a park behind a residential block on Stoletovsky Avenue and that forensic investigators were working at the scene. The channel said local residents were being urged to stay alert and avoid approaching suspicious objects.

Some witnesses initially believed a drone had struck a nearby building because of how loud the blast was, according to accounts circulating on Telegram.

Unverified claim about a suspect

The pro-Kremlin channel Mash claimed a woman carrying a backpack may have been involved, alleging she stood between two residential buildings — numbers 28 and 30 — and watched the man before the explosion. Ukrainska Pravda noted this claim has not been confirmed.

No source has provided official confirmation of the victim's identity or a motive for the attack.

A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack cut electricity across occupied Sevastopol overnight on 13 August, with power later restored on a temporary scheme after strikes damaged the city's energy infrastructure, the Russian-installed head of the city wrote on his Telegram channel.

The blackout is the latest blow in Ukraine's months-long campaign to isolate occupied Crimea by degrading the fuel, power, and transport networks Russia relies on to hold the peninsula. Sevastopol — the former main base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet — has lost power repeatedly since early June, when Ukraine sharply escalated strikes on Crimean energy sites.

What was hit

Drones headed toward the Balaklava thermal power plant, one of the peninsula's two main power stations, while mobile fire groups worked over Sevastopol, the monitoring channel Crimean Wind reported. Witnesses described an explosion and the loss of electricity across the city.

A fire also broke out at a large water-supply facility near the village of Shturmove, south of Sevastopol, around the time of the strike on Balaklava, the same channel said. The cause has not been established. The site houses the city's No. 3 hydro unit, which supplies Sevastopol's water.

Elsewhere on the peninsula, gunfire was reported near the Tavriiska thermal power plant, and Russian air defense operated near the Gvardiiske airfield.

A grid already rationing power

Russia closed the Crimean Bridge to road traffic during the attack, the crossing's occupation-run information channel reported.

The outage lands on a grid already under strain. Sevastopol last went fully dark on 27 July, and in July the occupation authorities imposed a rolling blackout schedule that left residents with about six hours of electricity a day. Since early June, Ukrainian strikes have repeatedly cut power across Crimea, with some districts dark for a week or more, alongside disruptions to water and mobile coverage.

The isolation campaign

Ukrainian officials have described the strikes as stages of a plan to cut occupied Crimea off from mainland Russia. Beyond power plants, Ukraine has hit the fuel tankers supplying the peninsula, the bridges and rail links feeding it, and Russian vessels — leaving Crimea rationing petrol and, at times, short of food.

Ukraine's military had not publicly claimed the 13 August strike as of publication.

Ukraine struck a Russian drone-control relay station and two other military targets in occupied Crimea and the occupied south overnight on 12 August, its General Staff said. Explosions rolled across the peninsula through the night, Sevastopol declared repeated air-raid alerts, and towns across occupied Crimea lost power, according to Ukrainian monitoring channels and Russian occupation authorities. 

Russia launches its attack drones at Ukraine from sites inside Russia and across occupied territory every day, and relay stations let it steer those drones over long distances. Occupied Crimea is the logistical spine of Russia's hold on southern Ukraine, the funnel through which fuel, ammunition, and reinforcements reach the front, and its fixed airfields, power plants, and control stations sit within reach of Ukraine's growing long-range arsenal.

What the General Staff says was hit

Ukraine's Defense Forces struck three targets overnight, the General Staff reported. The first was a ground relay station used to control Geran and Gerbera attack drones near Olenivka in occupied Crimea. The others were a Russian repair unit near Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast and a staging point for an enemy drone unit near Marivka in Luhansk Oblast.

Hitting these sites weakens Russia's ability to command its attack drones, keep its military vehicles running, and sustain its units, the General Staff said. 

Euromaidan Press could not independently verify the strikes and damage.

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Russia flies these drones through a chain of ground repeaters, often mounted on mobile-operator towers or similar tall structures, boost the control signal so operators inside Russia can steer Geran and Gerbera drones over Ukraine from hundreds of kilometers away. Kyiv has dismantled similar relay networks before, including one Russia had built on towers and rooftops in Belarus.

Explosions and blackouts across occupied Crimea

Sevastopol declared three air-raid alerts, and the Russian-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev claimed Russian forces downed more than 30 drones, with the heaviest activity over the Balaklava district and no one hurt.

The Ukrainian monitoring channel Krymsky Veter reported explosions in Feodosia and Kerch, and drones close to the Kacha and Belbek airfields. Residents reported air-defense activity near major cities.

The channel said explosions sounded near the Balaklava thermal power plant, a mobile gas-turbine station, and a substation in Sevastopol. Power cut out across parts of occupied Crimea, leaving Sevastopol, Simferopol, and several more cities and districts without electricity.

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After the attack, Krymsky Veter's monitoring group reported two large fires near Sevastopol, citing satellite data. One sat by a road junction near the village of Pervomaiske under Balaklava, where a bridge crosses the railway. The other burned near one of the local beaches. The group also logged an already-extinguished fire in the Inzhyr tract that had been reported the day before.

The same night, Ukraine also struck Russia's naval base at Novorossiysk, the fleet's main Black Sea base since late 2023.

Part of the campaign to isolate Crimea

The overnight strikes fit Ukraine's months-long effort to cut occupied Crimea off from the forces and supplies that sustain it. Ukrainian drones have severed road and rail links to the peninsula, left it rationing fuel under rolling blackouts, and pushed the campaign onto the sea by hunting the tankers that supply it. 

Ukraine's Crimea campaign aims to make the occupied peninsula unusable to Russian forces, its drone-forces commander told The Associated Press. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The campaign is only the first phase, said Maj. Robert "Madyar" Brovdi. His units could strike seven times more military targets with faster Western funding, he said.

The constraint is financing, not factory output. Brovdi put his forces at 14 percent of the strength a full-capacity operation would require. He traced the gap to the timing of allied money, not to Ukraine's drone production. "It's not that the production capacity of Ukrainian manufacturers doesn't allow us to make the necessary quantities" of drones, he said. He added: "It's the banal problem of untimely financing, which our partners do allocate, but which moves significantly slower than our plans."

Even so, Brovdi framed the peninsula as decisive. "Crimea falls within the key conceptual pillars on the path to ending the war," he said.

What the Crimea campaign has hit

The summer strikes have hit rail bridges, oil depots, and power infrastructure. These aim to cut supply lines and blind Russian air defenses as drones approach. To pry open a "window" for those drones, the force destroyed more than 300 air defense assets in recent months. Those included surface-to-air systems, radar stations, and electronic-warfare equipment.

Where Starlink connectivity reaches, an average of three drones can now destroy even a heavily defended target, Brovdi said. In turn, his crews match the munitions to each aim. One mix suits a bridge pier; another fits a fuel truck or a moving train. Even so, his forces avoid civilian infrastructure, he added. Still, strikes on the power grid have cut electricity for residents. Brovdi said he has twice publicly apologized to Ukrainians living in Crimea.

He also pointed to one measure of progress. Across four recent large-scale Russian barrages from the peninsula, launch sites fired only five missiles in total. He credited that drop, however, to the destruction of Russian air defenses. The AP could not independently verify the claim.

Forcing Russia off the peninsula

Much of Russia's Soviet-era air defense runs on the power grid. That is one reason Crimea's electricity network keeps drawing fire. As a result, losing power leaves Russian soldiers "blind," Brovdi said, with only machine guns and rifles.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is working to dismantle Crimea's role as a naval base. "Creating conditions that make it impossible for any kind of military capability … to remain there will make Crimea uninteresting … as a military staging ground," he said.

The offensive began in late June. Two weeks in, Ukrainian intelligence indicated Russia had ordered its military commands and security services off the peninsula, Brovdi said. In addition, a covert order called for removing secret archives and artworks. The AP could not independently verify the account.

Russian countermeasures and the missile threat

Russia is pushing back against the Crimea campaign. It is installing jamming systems that will degrade Starlink to some degree, Brovdi said. Russia is also building its own satellite network to rival the service. "This is a risk for the entire planet," he said, "because a dictatorship will gain access to information across the whole globe."

Other threats are mounting as well. Jet-powered Shahed drones are harder for Ukraine to shoot down. Their concentration has risen two and a half times in recent weeks, he said. Moreover, Russia can now fire a simultaneous salvo of 77 ballistic missiles and plans to raise that to 200. As a result, the danger is pressing. Ukraine is short of interceptors for the US-made Patriot, its only defense against ballistic missiles.

"Even if they only manage half of that, it will all be flying at us," Brovdi said. The only way to bring the number down is to hit every facility that builds the missiles, he added. That, he said, is why Ukraine's long-range strikes inside Russia matter.

Wildberries in the crosshairs

One civilian-facing target Brovdi named was Wildberries, Russia's largest online marketplace. Many call it the country's answer to Amazon. "Wildberries is, first of all, a supply platform—it's the war's quartermaster," he said. The company also runs a dedicated section selling goods for Russia's military, he noted.

For now, these strikes aim to make ordinary Russians feel the war directly. He declined to give a timeline. Instead, the strikes will continue "until it becomes impossible for it to recover quickly," he said.

Finally, he cast the retailer as a pressure point on morale. "Ultimately, Wildberries is, forgive the expression, a consumer gambling addiction," he said, comparing lost access to restrictions on social media. "It turned out to be a sensitive sensor of the comfort of Russia's massive population—people who consider themselves completely untouched by the actions of the aggressor country."

Drones struck several Russian oblasts overnight into 10 August. A probable strike hit a Nizhnekamsk refinery in the Republic of Tatarstan, while fires spread across occupied Crimea. Local Telegram channels and Ukrainian monitoring groups reported the attacks. Kyiv has not claimed them, and the damage stays unverified.

Thick smoke over the Nizhnekamsk refinery cluster

Residents of Nizhnekamsk reported explosions on the morning of 10 August. Footage online showed drones crossing the city, with dense black smoke above one district, local channels said. Which Nizhnekamsk refinery took the hit stayed unclear. The city hosts two major plants — the TAIF-NK and TANECO complexes.

TAIF-NK processes 7.3 million tons of crude and 1 million tons of gas condensate a year. Its 49 products include AI-92 and AI-95 gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. TANECO belongs to the Tatneft group. It ranks among Russia's largest and most advanced refineries. Its design capacity exceeds 16 million tons of crude a year.

Ukraine's Defense Forces struck both TANECO and TAIF-NK on 12 June, the General Staff confirmed. Ukrainian units hit the same cluster again in July.

Fires flare in occupied Crimea's Krasnoperekopsk

Explosions rocked Krasnoperekopsk — known in Ukrainian as Yany Kapu — overnight. Numerous fires burned by morning, the monitoring channel Crimean Wind reported. Around 7 blasts sounded between 2 and 3 a.m. Subscribers described a fire behind the railway station in the industrial area.

By the morning of 10 August, NASA's FIRMS satellite system flagged multiple heat signatures there, Crimean Wind said. The hotspots clustered in the town's southern industrial zone. Russian forces store and repair equipment in the area, the channel added.

Drones also crossed Sevastopol. Residents heard aircraft and gunfire near the Balaklava thermal power plant. The Russian-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, claimed 15 drones fell, mostly over the sea. He admitted, though, that falling debris ignited a forest fire near Inzhir beach and forced a campsite evacuation. A blast in Simferopol briefly cut power around 4 am before supply returned.

Moscow and Rostov cite downed drones

In the capital, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses downed 13 drones approaching Moscow overnight. He gave no details on any consequences. Over Rostov Oblast, Governor Yuri Slyusar said more than 70 drones destroyed. Information on casualties and damage was still coming in, he said.

Both counts reflect Russian air-defense claims rather than independently confirmed strikes.

Overnight, Russia's aviation authority Rosaviatsia restricted takeoffs and landings at Begishevo airport in Nizhnekamsk. The curbs also covered 14 other airports, among them Kazan, Ufa, Samara, and Moscow's Domodedovo and Vnukovo.

Russia can’t refine its way out of its fuel crisis, so it is changing who controls the already existing fuel. Months of Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries have driven shortages and rationing across much of the country. The government’s answer isn’t more fuel—it is a different market.

Faced with the shortage, the Kremlin had options. In June, analysts urged it to raise the exchange quota to push more fuel onto the open market and toward the regions running dry.

It did the opposite. The mandatory share of gasoline that producers must sell on the open exchange was cut from 15% to 10%, with the majors pushing for 2%, and the exchange was closed to anyone but buyers who will use the fuel themselves, shutting out traders who bought to resell.

That choice adds no fuel. It moves distribution off the exchange that set prices for a decade and into direct contracts between the big producers and the buyers they pick—handing the majors the chain from refinery to pump. Part of the package came straight from proposals Rosneft head Igor Sechin sent to President Vladimir Putin.

Winners and losers

The winners are the big, vertically integrated oil companies, which refine up to three-quarters of Russia’s oil. Direct deals let them keep the margin that once went to middlemen and choose who gets supplied; drop the quota to 2%, and about 5 million tonnes of gasoline a year move into their private channels.

The losers are the independent stations—60% to 72% of Russia’s roughly 25,000 gas stations, depending on who’s counting, and now unable to buy at the exchange price.

Alexander Moiseev, who owns the Kostroma Fuel Company, has been hauling gasoline from Surgut, 2,000 kilometers away, at 118 rubles a liter ($1.45) with freight, because the majors won’t sell to him wholesale. He works on a minimal markup. Rosneft, meanwhile, has multiplied sales at its own pumps.

What stabilization there is has been narrow. Prices eased mainly where supply was steered—Moscow, St. Petersburg, the big cities—while regions thick with independent gas stations stayed short, independent analyst Kirill Rodionov told Kommersant.

None of this is hidden. Facing the crunch, the government also let refiners sell banned Euro-2 gasoline again; online marketplaces pulled fuel listings; and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak called the market “challenging but under control.”

In occupied Crimea it goes furthest: this week, the occupation authorities announced fuel sales were stabilizing, even as they capped each car at 20 liters and fixed the price of AI-92, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center reported.

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The market goes dark

As the exchange shrinks, its prices no longer reflect the market, and the state publishes less information on output, stocks, and regional supply. The people who most need to see where Russia’s fuel balance is breaking—regulators at home, and the sanctions monitors and energy analysts abroad who read that data—are left with less to look at, market participants told Kommersant. The market is going dark.

Whether the change sticks is contested. Some read the cuts as a passing emergency. Others expect the market to keep sliding toward closed, bilateral deals—less transparent, harder for newcomers, the independent stations ever more tied to the majors, Viktoria Trifonova, Senior Analyst at Yakov & Partners, told Kommersant. The state has reached for limits, subsidies, and hands-on redistribution ever since the 2018 price crisis.

Keeping the independent gas station chains alive was never the goal, NEFT Research’s Dmitry Prokofiev wrote in Kommersant—it was to keep fuel flowing to the big cities of European Russia and, above all, to the priority government sector.

Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) destroyed a Pantsir-S1 air defense system worth an estimated $15 million and a military crane in occupied Crimea, HUR reported. The agency's Group 13 used maritime drones as drone carriers to deliver the strikes on ground targets. Separately, monitoring channels reported explosions across the peninsula from Kerch to Sevastopol overnight on 7 August, hitting the airfield Russia uses to launch Shaheds at Ukrainian cities.

FPV drones launched from Magura platforms destroy air defense

HUR's Group 13 used Magura naval platforms as floating carriers for FPV drones. The drones flew from the platforms to strike a camouflaged Pantsir-S1 and a military crane on land, the agency's video shows. HUR estimated the destroyed air defense system at $15 million.

HUR did not specify the exact location but said the operation took place in early August 2026. The Pantsir-S1 is a short-range gun-and-missile system Russia deploys to protect higher-value assets such as S-400 batteries and command posts. Each one destroyed leaves a gap in the layered coverage Russia relies on over the peninsula.

The agency noted that Group 13 operators recently struck a Podlyot radar control vehicle and a Parol-4 radar interrogator in Crimea as well.

The Pantsir kill adds to a months-long campaign that has destroyed nearly 200 Russian air defense assets in the first half of 2026 alone by the Unmanned Systems Forces.

Overnight strikes sweep peninsula from Kerch to Sevastopol

Separately, overnight on 7 August, Ukraine struck at least six locations across occupied Crimea.

Monitoring Telegram channel Krymsky Veter reported explosions and gunfire in Kerch at 02:38. Near Alushta, four strong explosions were heard in the village of Malorichenske close to a large power substation. In Sevastopol, mobile fire groups engaged targets without an air-raid alert, and residents reported a powerful explosion near Cape Fiolent.

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The heaviest strikes hit the Hvardiiske military airfield, which Russia uses to launch Shahed attack drones against Ukrainian cities. Hits landed in two waves, from 03:30 to 03:39 and from 04:34 to 04:47. A fuel and lubricants depot caught fire, and small-arms ammunition began detonating, Krymsky Veter reported. Residents described two fire sites visible for kilometers. The Crimean Bridge was temporarily closed during the strikes.

In Feodosia, initial reports of a strike on the oil depot were corrected: the hit likely landed on a concentration of Russian military equipment at the former 13th military compound on the Kerch Highway. Krymsky Veter noted the same compound was struck on 22 June. A vessel also burned at sea off Gelendzhik overnight.

No official confirmation of the strikes' results has been issued. 

Occupation officials in Sevastopol and occupied Crimea are telling residents the fuel crisis is easing—and this week they resumed “free sale” at a handful of named stations. From 6 August, every grade would again be sold openly on the TES network, occupation governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said, and AI-92, he noted, has been cut and fixed at no more than 100 rubles per liter ($1.23).

The catch is in the same announcement: no more than 20 liters per car, volumes the governor himself called small, and—at ATAN’s seven stations the same day—no filling canisters.

In occupied Crimea, the ATAN network capped diesel at 30 liters per customer and charged 119 rubles per liter ($1.46), the Crimean Tatar Resource Center reported.

Occupation authorities blame logistics and promise the caps will loosen and prices will fall once supply stabilizes. But shortages, high prices, and rationing show that the peninsula’s supply problems are far from solved, the center said. Crimea is caught in a shortage that now stretches across Russia, from filling stations to farms.

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None of this is new. Sevastopol restricted fuel sales on 22 May, Crimea on 29 May, and for weeks drivers have been buying by QR code. Through the summer, Ukraine’s drone campaign has been draining the seaborne lifeline that feeds the peninsula. The worsening supply of fuel, power, and water is a natural consequence of the war and the occupation, Ukraine’s military intelligence said.

Ukraine's military intelligence turned its newest sea drones into carriers for FPV strike drones and knocked out two Russian radar targets in occupied Crimea, according to Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR). The strike let its uncrewed boats reach Russian targets on land, a move the unit called a shift of the war to a new plane. HUR released footage of the operation on 3 August.

Sea drones that launched FPV drones onto land

HUR's special unit Group 13 ran the operation in occupied Crimea in late July 2026, the agency reported. The operators used the newest versions of Magura naval platforms, this time set up as FPV-drone carriers, to hit Russian ground targets on the peninsula. It was the first operation to show the newest Magura's effectiveness.

The aerial FPV drones struck a control vehicle from a Russian Podlyot radar system. They also hit a Parol-4 radar interrogator, part of the system Russian forces use to tell friendly aircraft from hostile ones.

The footage opens with a Russian projectile fired from the Crimean coast. It streaks past a Ukrainian naval drone and misses. After a cut, a naval drone fires anti-air missiles. The video then shows an FPV aerial drone launching from a naval drone. Two FPV drones then dive into the two radar targets.

The Maguras that hunted ships now threaten land

The Group 13 commander, callsign Thirteenth, framed the strikes as a turn in the war. 

"From now on our Maguras threaten the Russian occupiers on land too, a fundamental shift of the fight to another plane," he said. 

At sea, Group 13 has destroyed nine Russian ships and damaged five, HUR says. It has also destroyed three enemy helicopters and damaged one, and destroyed two Russian fighter jets.

Striletska Bay near Sevastopol, once a key base for Russian warships in occupied Crimea, is now nearly empty and used primarily for mooring tugboats and small patrol craft, the Atesh partisan group reported on July 8.

According to the group, Russia now uses the bay mainly for maintenance work and rare anti-sabotage defense drills, having pulled most major vessels from the area.

"Recently, the bay has been practically empty... The degradation of the occupation fleet in Sevastopol is becoming increasingly obvious. Striletska Bay, which previously housed a large number of combat vessels, is now idle." Atesh said.

The remaining combat units are periodically rotated and redeployed in an apparent effort to avoid detection by Ukrainian reconnaissance.

"Every object is under control — no ship will go unnoticed," Atesh said, adding that all ship movements are being tracked and shared with the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Sevastopol has served as the base for Russia's Black Sea Fleet since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Repeated Ukrainian attacks using naval drones, missiles, and long-range drones have forced the Kremlin to reduce its naval presence in occupied Crimea.

Ukraine has destroyed several Russian vessels, including the Caesar Kunikov landing ship, the Sergei Kotov patrol ship, the Ivanovets missile corvette, and multiple high-speed landing crafts.

The shrinking Russian presence in Sevastopol comes as Ukraine steps up drone attacks against other Black Sea Fleet locations. On July 6, drones struck the fleet's facilities in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, a key port east of Crimea across the Kerch Strait.

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Ukraine’s Oschadbank won an appeal against Russia on July 1 after the Paris appeals court rejected Moscow’s challenge to a 2018 arbitration ruling ordering compensation for losses due to Russia's annexation of Crimea, the bank announced in a press release on July 3.

The Paris Court of Appeal upheld the November 2018 arbitration tribunal decision requiring Russia to compensate Oschadbank for damages incurred when Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.

The ruling orders Russia to pay more than $1.5 billion in damages and an additional 300,000 euros ($330,000) in legal costs to Ukraine's largest state-owned bank, according to a press release.

"The victory proves that efforts to force the aggressor state to answer legally for damages caused by the occupation of part of Ukraine's territory have good prospects," said Rosa Tapanova, a member of Oschadbank's supervisory board.

Oschadbank Chairman Serhii Naumov said it's the first Ukrainian bank to win such a case against Russia.

The decision follows Oschadbank's recent seizure of over 87 million euros ($102 million) in Russian assets in France as part of its campaign to recover war-related losses. The bank has been pursuing Russian assets across multiple jurisdictions to enforce the arbitration award.

"We understand that the Russian Federation will never voluntarily comply with the court's decision, and we are prepared for a long struggle," said Arsen Miliutin, deputy chairman of Oschadbank's management board.

"At the same time, we are confident that we will win, and Russia will pay not only the amount of damages caused, but also interest for all this time."

The Oschadbank victory adds to a growing list of Ukrainian legal wins against Russia. On June 23, Naftogaz CEO Serhii Koretskyi announced that an international arbitration tribunal in Switzerland had ordered Russia's Gazprom to pay the Ukrainian state energy company $1.37 billion after the Russian firm stopped fulfilling contract obligations in May 2022.

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The Crimean Bridge was temporarily closed late on June 29 following reports of explosions and active air defense fire in the city of Kerch, according to local Telegram channels.

Witnesses reported hearing multiple blasts and observing Russian air defense systems in action. "Explosions heard in Kerch, Russian air defense is firing, and the lighting on the Crimean Bridge has been turned off," the Crimean Wind Telegram channel reported.

Ukraine has frequently targeted the Crimean Bridge over the course of the Russian full-scale invasion. Constructed after Russia's illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014, it is a critical supply and transport route for Russian forces to the occupied Ukrainian territories.

Traffic on the bridge was briefly halted, though it remains unclear whether the closure was precautionary or due to damage. Traffic reportedly resumed just over an hour later.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on June 30 that its air defense systems shot down five Ukrainian drones overnight over the Sea of Azov. It did not report any damage in Kerch or to the Crimean Bridge.

The incident follows a series of Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Bridge. On June 3, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) confirmed it had carried out a third strike targeting the bridge, detonating 1,100 kilograms of explosives beneath its underwater supports.

"God loves the Trinity, and the SBU always brings what is conceived to the end and never repeats itself," SBU Chief Vasyl Malyuk said in a statement at the time. The operation, he added, had been planned over several months and caused "severe" damage to the bridge's foundations without harming civilians.

Russian media later claimed a Ukrainian intelligence agent involved in preparing the explosive had been detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge, previously suffered damage in Ukrainian attacks in October 2022 and July 2023. Despite these strikes, Russia has worked to maintain the bridge's operational status due to its strategic and symbolic importance.

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Drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) struck the Kirovske military airfield in occupied Crimea overnight on June 28, the SBU told the Kyiv Independent.

The attack destroyed Mi-8, Mi-26 and Mi-28 attack helicopters, and a Pantsyr-S1 self-propelled anti-aircraft missile and gun system, the SBU claimed.

According to the SBU, Ukraine targeted Russian aviation, air defense systems, as well as ammunition, reconnaissance and attack drones storage facilities.

Secondary explosions were heard at the airfield during the night.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.

As Russia intensifies aerial attacks on Ukraine and the civilian death toll climbs, Ukraine has stepped up its drone attacks on Russian territory too.

Earlier on June 27, Ukrainian drones struck four Su-34 fighter jets at the Marinovka airfield in Russia's Volgograd Oblast, according to the military.

Preliminary reports indicate that two Russian fighter jets were destroyed in the June 27 attack, and the other two were damaged. Russia uses the aircraft to bomb Ukraine.

Since the start of its full-scale war in February 2022, Russia has lost 420 airplanes and 337 helicopters, Ukraine's General Staff said in its latest update on June 28. The Kyiv Independent could not verify these figures.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia

Key developments on June 27: * Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia * North Korea deployed 20% of Kim’s elite ‘personal reserve’ to fight against Ukraine in Russia, Umerov says * Pro-Palestinian activists reportedly destroy military equipment intended for Ukraine * Zelensky signs decree to synchronize Russia sanctions

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk

Ukrainian drones struck air defense equipment in Russian-occupied Crimea, damaging radar units and components of the S-400 Triumph system, Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) claimed on June 26.

The drone strike was carried out by the agency's "Ghosts" unit, HUR said. Video footage of the operation published on HUR's official Telegram channel shows the trajectory of multiple drones as they approach and hit their targets.

The attack damaged "critical and expensive components" of Russia's S-400 Triumph air defense system, including two 92N2E multifunctional control radars, two 91N6E detection radars, and an S-400 launcher, according to HUR.

"Radars are the 'eyes' of the enemy's air defense system. Without them, anti-aircraft systems become combat ineffective," HUR wrote.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.

Earlier this month, the Atesh partisan group reported that a Ukrainian drone attack hit Russian military facilities near Simferopol. The group claimed on June 13 that Ukrainian drone attacks likely hit a Russian air defense system.

Ukraine has previously carried out successful attacks on S-400 radar systems in Crimea and other regions, including Russia's Belgorod Oblast. Kyiv regularly launches strikes on military and industrial targets in both Russia and Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine.

Russia has illegally occupied Crimea since 2014, transforming the peninsula into a heavily militarized stronghold. Moscow uses the region to support its war in Ukraine, launching missiles from the Black Sea and exploiting the peninsula as a key logistics and transport hub.

The Kerch Airport in Crimea has also been repurposed from civilian to military use, with Moscow-backed proxies transferring part of the airport's land to the Russian Defense Ministry in spring 2025, according to an investigation by Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe.

Ukraine war latest: Russia’s advance in Sumy Oblast ‘halted’; Kyiv, Moscow carry out POW swap

Key developments on June 26: * “50,000 Russian troops pinned down” — Ukraine halts advance in Sumy Oblast, summer offensive “faltering,” Syrskyi says * Ukraine, Russia conduct new POW swap under Istanbul deal * North Korea likely to send more troops to Russia by August, South Korea says * Explosions reported in Moscow, Russia

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk

A lion has attacked collaborator Oleg Zubkov at the Taigan Safari Park he founded in Russian-occupied Crimea, the Crimean Wind Telegram channel reported on June 22.

Zubkov is a businessman who renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and began cooperating with the Russian authorities following Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014

He also smuggled animals from zoos in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

During an evening feeding, Zubkov was attacked by a lion which tore his trachea, neck, and chest muscles with its claws. He managed to leave the lion's enclosure but then lost consciousness.

As a result of the attack, Zubkov lost a significant amount of blood and was transported by helicopter to a hospital in Simferopol, Crimea.

Zubkov regained consciousness on June 23 after surgery, and his condition is described as stable.

This is not the first time lions at the Taigan Safari Park have attacked its staff. In 2024, three lions killed Leokadia Perevalova while she was cleaning an enclosure. Perevalova had worked at the park for 17 years.

Russia pulls its scientists out of Iranian nuclear plant, as Israeli strikes threaten decades of collaboration

Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have alarmed none more than Russia, the country that first brought nuclear power to Iran in defiance of Western objections. We’re “millimeters from catastrophe,” said Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on June 18 in response to a bombing campaign that Israel launched against Iran on June 13. Decades of conflict with the West have united Iran and Russia, despite a cultural gulf between the two nations that dwarfs the Caspian Sea that physically di

The Kyiv IndependentKollen Post

Ukrainian journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko was released on June 20 after more than four years of detention in Russian-occupied Crimea, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

Yesypenko, a freelance contributor to Crimea.Realities, a regional project of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, reported on various issues in Crimea before being detained by Russia’s FSB in March 2021.

He was accused of espionage and possession of explosives, charges he denied, and later sentenced to five years in prison by a Russian-controlled court.

Yesypenko said he was tortured, including with electric shocks, to force a confession, and was denied access to independent lawyers for nearly a month after his arrest.

RFE/RL welcomed his release, thanking the U.S. and Ukrainian governments for their efforts. Yesypenko has since left Russian-occupied Crimea.

“Vlad was arbitrarily punished for a crime he didn’t commit… he paid too high a price for telling the truth about occupied Crimea,” said RFE/RL President Steven Kapus.

During his imprisonment, Yesypenko became a symbol of press freedom, receiving several prestigious awards, including the Free Media Award and PEN America’s Freedom to Write Award.

His case drew support from human rights groups, the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, and international advocates for media freedom.

Russia invaded and unlawfully annexed Crimea in 2014, cracking down violently on any opposition to its regime.

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin toughened its grip on dissent, passing laws in March 2022 that prohibit what authorities label as "false" criticism of Russia's war.

Crimean Tatar freed from Russian captivity: ‘Recognizing Russia’s control of Crimea would legitimize crime’

For nearly two years in Russian captivity, Leniie Umerova clung to a single hope: that one day, she would return home — to Crimea. “I thought about Crimea all the time,” Umerova told the Kyiv Independent. “I dreamed of going there without the permission of the occupying forces, without going through

The Kyiv IndependentDaria Shulzhenko

The lower house of the Dutch parliament on June 19 officially recognized the 1944 mass deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union as genocide, according to a statement from the parliamentary press service.

The motion cited precedent from other countries that have recognized the forced deportations as genocide, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

In the adopted text, Dutch lawmakers declared that the Soviet-led deportation of Crimean Tatars, which took place between May 18 and 21, 1944, constitutes genocide by contemporary legal and historical definitions.

The 1944 deportation was carried out under direct orders from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who labeled the entire Crimean Tatar population as traitors following the peninsula's liberation from Nazi occupation.

Over 190,000 Tatars were forcibly removed from Crimea in a matter of days, though some estimates place the number closer to 430,000, and sent to remote areas in Central Asia, mainly Uzbekistan, in brutal conditions that led to mass deaths.

The document pointed to the ongoing repression of Crimean Tatars under Russian occupation since 2014. It said that "many Crimean Tatars have been unjustly imprisoned, subjected to torture by the Russian Federation, or forcibly disappeared," and added that "Russia has likely continued a policy of genocide against Crimean Tatars."

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha welcomed the decision, calling it "a powerful gesture of solidarity with the Crimean Tatar people, who are still facing persecution under Russia’s temporary occupation of the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula."

Sybiha noted that the Netherlands is now the seventh country to formally recognize the deportation as genocide and urged other nations to follow suit.

"Recognizing this historical injustice is critical not only for establishing truth and justice, but also for preventing future atrocities," the minister wrote.

Ukraine's parliament recognized the deportation as genocide in 2015 and established May 18 as the official Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People.

Who are the Crimean Tatars?

Crimean Tatars are one of Ukraine’s indigenous peoples who have been central to Crimea’s history for many centuries.

The Kyiv IndependentAnastasiia Lapatina

Editor's note: The story is being updated.

Explosions could be heard across Crimea early on June 13, including in Sevastopol and Simferopol, the Crimean Wind Telegram channel reported amid Russian claims of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Atesh partisans reported "precise hits" against Russian military facilities near Simferopol.

"Our agents report that due to the negligence of the (Russian) command, valuable equipment was damaged, probably an air defense missile system," the group said on Telegram.

"There are also losses among the troops," Atesh said, adding that the exact numbers are difficult to establish.

The pro-Ukrainian Crimean Wind Telegram channel reported a hit in Simferopol, Crimea's capital, sharing a photo of a plume of smoke rising in the vicinity of a local power station and of the village of Perevalne. Blasts in Yevpatoriia, Saki, Fedosia, and elsewhere were also reported.

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses shot down 125 Ukrainian drones overnight on June 13, including 70 over Crimea and seven over the Black Sea. Russian officials did not comment on possible damage.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims. Ukraine has not commented on the alleged attacks.

Russia has illegally occupied Crimea since 2014, transforming the peninsula into a heavily militarized stronghold to support its war against Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces have repeatedly targeted the peninsula with missiles and drones since the outbreak of the full-scale war in 2022. Most recently, Ukrainian drones attacked an ammunition depot used by Russia's 126th Coastal Defense Brigade near the village of Perevalne.

As Russian losses in Ukraine hit 1 million, Putin’s war economy heads toward breaking point

Russian losses in Ukraine hit a massive, and grim milestone on June 12 — 1 million Russian soldiers killed or wounded during the 39-month-long full-scale war, according to figures from Kyiv. Although hugely symbolic, the number is unlikely to prompt a change in tactics from Moscow as it gears up for

The Kyiv IndependentChris York

Kerch Airport in occupied Crimea is being repurposed from civilian to military use, according to a June 12 investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Schemes project, citing satellite imagery and Russian real estate registry data.

On March 4, 2025, the Russian-backed authorities officially transferred part of the airport's land to Russia's Defense Ministry for indefinite use, according to the investigation.

Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 after a discredited referendum under military occupation. Since then, the peninsula has become a heavily militarized zone.

Satellite images from the Planet Labs imaging company show ongoing construction at the site, including the installation of protective and camouflage structures around the runway.

The changes suggest the airport is being converted into a military facility capable of supporting drone operations or housing short-range air defense systems such as the Pantsir-S1 or Tor-M2, according to aviation expert Anatoly Khrapchinsky.

The new runway will be suitable for drone launches, Khrapchinsky noted.

Kerch Airport has not hosted regular commercial flights since 2007 and was previously used as a truck holding area for freight vehicles crossing the nearby ferry. That function was relocated in March 2025, officially as part of a "reorganization."

The city of Kerch, situated near the strategic Kerch Strait, lies just across from Russia's Krasnodar Krai and is home to the crucial Crimean Bridge, built after Russia's illegal annexation of the peninsula in 2014.

Germany to supply new Iris-T air defense systems to Ukraine, rules out Taurus missiles

Germany will deliver new IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine under a three-year supply plan, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a joint press conference with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who said Berlin has no plans to provide Taurus long-range missiles.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy