Ukraine's new defense minister wears his war on his wrist. Yevhenii Khmara's bracelet carries, on each of its chains, the engraved name of a comrade who did not come back from the war, The National Interest reported.

Khmara took over the Defense Ministry on 19 August, replacing Mykhailo Fedorov, whose July dismissal set off nationwide protests. He came to the job from the SBU, Ukraine's Security Service, which he had led for seven months when Ukraine's campaign against Russian oil refining reached its widest scale.

He did not volunteer the story

Khmara did not explain the bracelet until a reporter asked him about it over dinner in Kyiv this month. The names now travel with him into the meetings where decisions about Ukraine's defense are made.

He ran the SBU during the oil campaign

Alpha, the SBU's special operations unit, is a tiny share of Ukraine's armed forces, yet the service's own accounting credits it with an outsized share of the damage inflicted on Russia, up to 20 percent of all enemy infantry losses.

More telling is what happened to Russian oil during his seven months in charge of the service. Ukraine's General Staff now estimates that nearly 43 percent of Russia's refining capacity has been knocked out. To a large extent, this is the result of the campaign Khmara helped oversee.

Khmara also developed a doctrine of ruthless cost asymmetry: strike operations designed to cost roughly 2 percent of the economic damage they inflict, targeting not individual facilities but critical nodes within the system.

Khmara insisted that part of the staff of the previous minister stayed

Earlier, Khmara has proposed that the core of the former Defense Ministry team remain in their positions. In particular, this concerns specialists responsible for procurement reform.

Mstyslav Banik, who served as a deputy to Fedorov, confirmed that he was staying on under the newly appointed defense minister. He led a central part of the ministry's modernization and is responsible for implementing the defense procurement reform.

Ukrainian drones attacked two Ozon logistics centers overnight on 27 August, one in Ufa and one in Orenburg Oblast, Russia's second-largest online store said. Staff were evacuated at both sites, and preliminary information indicated no casualties. Video published by Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ shows a drone reaching the Bashkortostan warehouse and exploding.

The strike on camera

Exilenova+ reported in the morning that an Ozon warehouse was burning after impacts in Blagoveshchensk, a town north of Ufa. The Bashkortostan capital lies roughly 1,300 kilometers from the war zone in Ukraine. Around midday the channel published eyewitness video of what it called the moment of a drone attack on the site, and said the warehouse had not caught fire. The footage shows a drone reaching the site and detonating there.

Earlier, the channel reported that residents of Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan's second-largest city, about 120 kilometers from Ufa, had written about explosions, with nothing then known about impacts. Astra later placed smoke over what it said was probably the Bashkir Soda Company works there.

Ozon said the Orenburg site—about 1,200 kilometers from the war zone—has resumed work. The one it placed in Ufa sustained what it called minor damage but remains closed, because the grounds need a thorough inspection. It is not accepting deliveries.

Russian news Telegram channel Astra identified the damaged facility from the eyewitness footage as Ozon's UFA_RFC fulfillment center in Blagoveshchensk. When it opened in late 2024 it was billed as the largest Ozon logistics complex in Russia's Volga federal district, with a total area of 93,000 square meters.

Smoke over the Ufa refineries

Astra also traced smoke in eyewitness footage to the Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim refinery in Ufa. The plant is one of Rosneft's leading refineries and a dual-use site: it supplies specialized fuel to Russia's armed forces and petrochemical feedstock for defense-grade materials. It burned after a strike on 1 August.

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Ukrainian drones hit warehouse belonging to Russian online retailer Ozon for the first time

What officials said, and didn't

Bashkortostan's authorities did not report the attack. Orenburg Oblast governor Yevgeny Solntsev mentioned drone danger in his region but gave no account of consequences. Ufa closed its airport.

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed air defenses destroyed 267 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones overnight across Russian regions, Bashkortostan among them.

The campaign so far

Ukraine's warehouse campaign began with Wildberries, Russia's largest online marketplace, which lost eight warehouses and roughly 860,000 square meters of storage in July alone. It reached Ozon for the first time on 22 August at Chapayevsk in Samara Oblast, where more than 500 employees evacuated and people were hurt. Four more Ozon hubs were hit across southern Russia two nights later.

Ukrainian drones struck the Afipsky oil refinery in southern Russia overnight on 25 August, monitoring Telegram channels reported. Regional authorities claimed falling drone debris caused fires. Ukraine's General Staff later confirmed the strike, and, in the same post, a hit on a gas processing plant in Astrakhan Oblast the night before. 

Fire at the plant, and Russia's debris account

Initially, the Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channels Exilenova+ and Supernova+ reported the strike, publishing footage of the fire and placing one burning storage tank on the plant's grounds. NASA's FIRMS satellite fire data confirmed the burning site, Militarnyi reported.

The Krasnodar Krai operational headquarters stated that falling drone parts started the fire. Governor Veniamin Kondratyev claimed that debris fell on the grounds of the Afipskaya railway station, killing two people and injuring two more, and stated that fires broke out in the nearby settlement and at the refinery itself.

Ukrainian forces struck two U-272 gas separation units at the Astrakhan gas processing plant the night before, the General Staff wrote in the same post. That plant makes technical sulfur, which goes into explosives. 

Drones also attacked Rostov Oblast overnight, with the Novoshakhtinsk refinery as the target, according to Supernova+.

The refinery Ukraine keeps targeting

Drones have reached the plant repeatedly this year, in January, March, June, and July, making the latest hit the fifth since the start of the year, The Moscow Times counted. In the July case, the Russian news Telegram channel Astra said the fire started near the tank farm.

Ukrainian drones have attacked Russian refineries more than 70 times since the start of 2026 and knocked several dozen plants out of service, The Moscow Times said, while Ukraine's General Staff counted 194 strikes on refineries in the first half of the year alone. Five stopped processing entirely after strikes since 1 August: Permnefteorgsintez, Orsknefteorgsintez, Zapsibneftekhim, and the Saratov and Volgograd refineries, the outlet said.

Ukrainian forces struck production facilities at the Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery in Russia’s Samara Oblast overnight on 22 August, sparking a fire at the Rosneft-owned plant, Ukraine’s General Staff said. The extent of the damage remains under assessment.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russia’s oil refineries to restrict military fuel supplies and reduce the energy revenues supporting Moscow’s war. The latest strike came as gasoline rationing returned to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and Rosneft capped nationwide purchases. Militarnyi described the plant as one of Russia’s 10 largest refineries.

The Rosneft-owned refinery can process about 8.8 million metric tons of crude annually and produces more than 20 petroleum products, including aviation fuel and diesel, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Fire Point said FP-1 long-range drones were used to strike the refinery.

The same overnight wave also hit an Ozon logistics center in Chapayevsk, where people were injured, and work was halted, Reuters reported, citing the company.

Neither the damage to the refinery nor any interruption to production has been independently confirmed.

Ukraine keeps pressure on Russian fuel supplies

The strike came one day after Ukraine confirmed hitting Lukoil’s Perm refinery, approximately 1,530 kilometers from Ukraine’s northern border. That attack also caused a fire, according to the General Staff.

At least four Russian refineries went offline during August amid continuing Ukrainian attacks.

By mid-August, filling stations in at least 12 Russian regions were experiencing hours-long lines. Some areas had reintroduced purchase limits or rationing based on license-plate numbers, according to the same report.

Gasoline limits had also been reinstated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, while Rosneft had capped sales at 30 liters per vehicle across its nationwide filling-station network. Diesel purchases remained unrestricted.

Ukraine struck one of Russia's largest oil refineries deep in the Urals and a military airfield overnight in a long-range attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on 21 August. The Ukrainian Army's General Staff confirmed the refinery and airfield hits, while Zelenskyy said the same night also reached the Black Sea and brought fresh damage from earlier strikes on a Russian warplane and a drone-launch site.

Fire at a major Lukoil refinery in Perm

Zelenskyy said the overnight drones hit the Lukoil-Permnefteorgsintez refinery — known as PNOS — in Perm, where the General Staff recorded a fire on the plant's grounds. The target sits more than 1,500 km from Ukraine's northern border, in a region near the Ural Mountains.

The refinery is one of Russia's largest, able to process more than 13 million tons of crude a year, with more than half its output sold abroad until recently. It supplies fuel to both Russia's economy and its army.

Ukrainian Telegram channels Supernova+ and Exilenova+ shared footage of explosions and a rising plume, with locals reporting a series of blasts at the site. Russia's Perm Krai authorities claimed they repelled the attack and downed 16 drones.

Kyiv has repeatedly hit the plant through the year. After a strike at the end of July, it had been running well below capacity.

Airfield, Black Sea, and other targets the same night

The General Staff said the same night's drones also struck the Marinovka military airfield in Volgograd Oblast, located in Russia's Volga region, with the damage still being assessed, while Zelenskyy added that Ukraine achieved unspecified results in the Black Sea. The military also reported hitting a drone storage and launch site near Donetsk, a materiel warehouse in occupied Crimea, two command posts in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, and six relay stations in Crimea used to steer Russia's Geran and Gerbera attack drones.

Zelenskyy also confirmed damage from earlier strikes: a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber hit at the Akhtubinsk airfield, about 600 km from the front line, and a drone store and launch site struck at Primorsko-Akhtarsk, roughly 180 km away. The strike extends a run of deep hits this month, from the TANECO refinery in Tatarstan and a Black Sea oil terminal to three refineries hit in one night and an Omsk refinery struck 2,500 km away in Siberia.

Gasoline prices have risen roughly 10–13% in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan as Russia restricts exports after Ukrainian strikes on its refineries, Kazakh economist Aidar Alibayev estimated in a 20 August interview with Current Time. He did not specify the comparison period.

Earlier Ukrainian attacks disrupted Kazakhstan’s crude exports through Russia’s Black Sea ports. Strikes at refineries are creating a different kind of squeeze: Russia has less gasoline available to dependent neighbors. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are seeking other suppliers, while Kazakhstan could face growing pressure if the shortages persist.

Tajikistan has been hit hardest because it depends heavily on Russian fuel and has the region’s most difficult delivery routes, Alibayev said. He estimated gasoline prices there had risen 12–13%. Current Time reported that Tajikistan is exploring supplies from China; Alibayev said it was also turning to Iran.

Kyrgyzstan, which sources more than 90% of its gasoline from Russia, asked its neighbors, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as well as other countries, for help. Current Time reported that a deputy prime minister said its reserves would last about six weeks. Alibayev estimated prices had climbed around 10%, compared with 11–11.5% in Uzbekistan, which he estimated gets half its fuel from Russia.

In Uzbekistan, Alibayev estimated that fuel prices had risen by about 11% and said the country gets about half of its fuel from Russia.

Russia extended its gasoline and diesel export restrictions through 31 January 2027 as shortages mounted. Intergovernmental and humanitarian shipments remain exempt, while diesel producers regain some export rights from 1 September. Current Time also reported that Russian companies had begun buying gasoline from Belarus.

Kazakhstan is better insulated than its neighbors because its refineries in Atyrau, Shymkent, and Pavlodar produce enough fuel to meet most domestic demand, Alibayev noted. Motorists from Russia and neighboring states are crossing its borders to refuel. He attributed Kazakhstan’s price rises mainly to domestic taxes and the end of an export moratorium—not Russia’s shortage alone.

Central Asia looks for routes beyond Russia as war drags on

Ukraine’s Black Sea campaign has repeatedly struck oil infrastructure around Novorossiysk, where the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal handles about 80% of Kazakhstan’s crude exports. Separate tanker attacks cut CPC loadings by a fifth and forced Kazakhstan to reduce production. In contrast, disruptions at the terminal forced Kazakhstan to send Kashagan crude to China for the first time.

At an informal summit of Central Asian leaders in Cholpon-Ata in early August, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon proposed building a refinery to serve the whole region. For now, Alibayev said, the decisive factor is how long Russia’s troubles last: the longer Ukraine’s strikes continue, the more they will weigh on prices across Central Asia.

Ukraine’s Defense Forces struck a major oil refinery and a Black Sea oil terminal on 19 August and overnight into 20 August, Ukraine’s General Staff reported. Drones also hit a key mainland electricity hub supplying occupied Crimea, Militarnyi reported after analyzing NASA satellite data.

Together, the reported strikes put three parts of Russia’s war machine under attack within hours: fuel production, Black Sea oil exports, and the mainland electricity bridge to occupied Crimea. They continue a deep-strike campaign intended to disrupt fuel supplies and logistics supporting Russia's invasion

A major refinery deep inside Russia

Ukraine struck the TANECO refinery in Nizhnekamsk, in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, where the General Staff reported a fire at the production site. Militarnyi had earlier identified the same facility from eyewitness footage showing a drone reaching the city’s industrial zone despite Russian air-defense fire.

Owned by Tatneft, TANECO is one of Russia’s newest, largest, and most technologically advanced refineries. It can process more than 16 million tons of crude annually and produces gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, marine fuel, and other petroleum products.

Neither the General Staff nor the available imagery established whether processing equipment was damaged or production stopped.

A Black Sea terminal moving about 20 million tons a year

Ukraine also hit the Tamanneftegaz oil and gas terminal in the village of Volna, Krasnodar Krai, where the General Staff reported another fire. Militarnyi found a corresponding fire in NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) data and assessed that storage tanks were likely burning.

Militarnyi described Tamanneftegaz as southern Russia’s largest private oil terminal. The complex can handle about 19.9 million tons annually, while its tank farm held more than 1 million cubic meters before Ukrainian attacks began.

The Tamanneftegaz terminal receives, stores, and loads petroleum products onto tankers, making it an important link in Russia’s Black Sea exports. Drones previously hit three tanks and pipelines there on 30 July.

The mainland electricity gateway to occupied Crimea

Drones hit the Taman 500-kilovolt substation in Krasnodar Krai, where NASA satellite data recorded a fire, Militarnyi reported. All four lines of Russia’s power bridge across the Kerch Strait pass through this high-voltage hub, making it the principal mainland gateway for electricity sent to occupied Crimea, Militarnyi reported.

Power failed in Simferopol, Sevastopol, Kerch, Feodosia, and Yalta around 1:45 a.m., according to Suspilne Crimea. Electric transport stopped in several cities. Sevastopol’s occupation chief said restrictions were lifted after about 90 minutes, although the grid remained unstable and some nearby settlements still lacked electricity. Social facilities in Sevastopol switched to backup power.

Crimean Wind also reported explosions near the Kafa and Malorechenske substations inside Crimea, Suspilne Crimea reported. The available evidence therefore does not establish that the Taman strike alone caused the outages.

Ukraine’s sustained long-range strike campaign

Ukraine's long-range strikes on Russian targets have ramped up in recent months. One day earlier, drones hit a key crude-processing unit at the Bashneft-UNPZ refinery in Ufa, Militarnyi reported. Ukraine had also struck TANECO on 10 August and both Nizhnekamsk refineries on 12 June, Suspilne reported.

Euromaidan Press reported that Ukrainian deep strikes hit 18 Russian oil and gas facilities in May, making it the heaviest month of 2026 at that point. On 6 August, drones attacked a top-five refinery in Yaroslavl for the seventh time this year. Five days later, they reached Orsk, about 1,500 kilometers from Ukraine.

The United States has rebuilt intelligence sharing with Ukraine—the flow of satellite data, targeting, and attack warnings—to its pre-freeze peak, according to Politico. That restored flow now sharpens Kyiv's long-range strikes inside Russia, and senators from both parties say it has strengthened Ukraine. The White House says President Donald Trump stays focused on ending the war.

Russia funds its invasion largely with oil money, and Ukraine has spent the past year burning that revenue at the source, sending drones against refineries far behind the front. Foreign backing has wavered across the war, and every US pledge now carries the question of whether it will hold.

The freeze that started with a White House blowup

The cutoff came after Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clashed in the Oval Office on 28 February 2025. Days later, the White House froze weapons and intelligence to push Kyiv toward talks. It did not last. Washington restored the flow within about a week, after US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia.

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Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the renewed sharing has improved Ukraine's position.

"Everybody loves a winner and looks like Ukraine has turned the tide," said Republican Senator John Cornyn.

Better data, deadlier strikes

"Those strikes were supercharged," and became "significantly more effective when imbued with intelligence from the Americans," said George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War.

He tied the drone strikes on Russian energy sites to a plan to raise the war's cost for Moscow.

Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations said Ukrainian officials give Washington confident reads on what is happening in Moscow, not just inside the Kremlin. Warner said no one in the US defense establishment, himself included, expected Ukraine to reach this point a year ago.

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Euromaidan Press reported that losing the feed let Russian troops claw back territory in Russia's Kursk Oblast and left thousands of Ukrainians at risk of encirclement.

"As a result of this pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians," one Ukrainian officer told.

Why the renewed backing is hard to unwind

The restored flow binds Washington to Ukraine's deep-strike campaign, making the tie harder for any ceasefire to sever. Agreement across party lines suggests the backing could outlast the next swing in American politics.

Ukrainian drones struck one of Russia's five largest oil refineries in Yaroslavl on the morning of 6 August, setting off several fires across the site, monitoring channels reported. Open-source analysts placed the blazes on the refinery grounds, while the region's governor claimed his air defenses downed the entire raid. The strike continued a months-long campaign that has pushed Russian oil refining to its lowest level in more than two decades.

Fires break out across the refinery

Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+ first reported the attack around 4:00, later sharing footage that showed thick black smoke rising from several points on the site. Fire Point, the Ukrainian company that builds the FP-1 long-range drone, said Ukraine's Defense Forces hit the plant with the domestically made FP-1s. Open-source analysts geolocated one blaze to the refinery grounds. Astra, a Russian news Telegram channel, reported one fire on the plant's territory and a second it had not yet located.

One of Russia's biggest refineries

Slavneft-YANOS, also called the Novo-Yaroslavl refinery, ranks among Russia's five largest and is the biggest in the country's central regions. It processes about 15 million tonnes of crude a year into gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, jet fuel, lubricants, and bitumen. Rosneft and Gazprom jointly control 99.7% of its parent company, Slavneft. The plant's fuel feeds central Russian industry, airports, the Northern Railway, and military sites. It sits more than 700 kilometers from Ukraine's border.

Russia claims it downed every drone in the region

Yaroslavl Governor Mikhail Yevraev first reported the region was under drone attack around 3:00 and closed the highway toward Moscow. He later claimed the region had repelled its most massive drone raid, downing all 88 drones with no casualties. Yevraev stated that a detached house burned, windows were shattered in several apartment blocks, and residents' cars were damaged. 

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it destroyed 605 drones over several regions overnight.

The plant has burned repeatedly in 2026, catching fire on 28 March, 26 April, 8 and 22 May, and 6 and 16 July before the latest hit. That made 6 August the seventh strike on the refinery this year. In the 16 July attack, an FP-1 struck the plant's tank farm.

Russia's refining in retreat

Ukraine has sharply expanded its FP-1 deep strikes on refineries this year, knocking out around 26 plants. By late July, only eight had fully restarted and at least 11 partly. Seven refineries stayed idle. Russian refining fell to 3.6 million barrels a day, its lowest since May 2002. 

Earlier, Moscow banned fuel exports, boosted gasoline imports from Belarus 25-fold, and turned to India and Morocco. It also let refiners sell Euro-2 gasoline, a grade banned in Russia since 2013, through 1 July 2027.

Georgia's only oil refinery says it has begun replacing Russian crude with supplies from Kazakhstan and Libya.

The update comes after the European Union sanctioned the refinery for processing Russian crude as part of its effort to curb revenues funding Moscow's war against Ukraine. Brussels gave the company six months to end its reliance on Russian oil before the restrictions take effect.

In a statement released on 31 July, Black Sea Petroleum (BSP), which operates the Kulevi Oil Refinery on Georgia's Black Sea coast, said implementation of its crude supply diversification plan was already under way and remained on schedule.

Kazakh crude already being refined

The company said the refinery began processing crude oil of Kazakh origin at the beginning of July, with the remaining contracted volumes to be refined during August.

BSP also announced that, under an agreement signed with an international trading company on 3 July, a cargo of Libyan crude is expected to arrive at Kulevi between 20 and 30 August. The contract runs through the end of 2027 and includes an option to extend it.

According to the company, the transition will allow the refinery to operate entirely on non-Russian crude beginning in August and September, in line with plans announced on 1 July.

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The statement follows the European Union's decision on 24 July to sanction the Kulevi refinery as part of its 21st sanctions package against Russia. The measures prohibit transactions with the refinery after a six-month transition period, giving the company time to end its reliance on Russian crude.

BSP said the European Commission had acknowledged during a 24 July press briefing that the transition period was intended to enable the refinery to diversify its crude supplies. The company said the steps it has already taken are consistent with that objective and the timeline set by Brussels.

The refinery said it would continue working with the European Commission and other relevant authorities while providing "clear, verifiable evidence" of its progress toward eliminating Russian feedstock.

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The sanctions marked the first time the EU targeted a major Georgian company under its Russia sanctions regime.

The refinery came under scrutiny after Reuters reported in 2025 that it had begun processing crude supplied by Russian producer Russneft. According to research by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), the refinery received six shipments of Russian crude between October 2025 and May 2026, while refined products were exported to EU member states including Spain and Bulgaria.

EU officials have said the refinery could be removed from the sanctions list if it demonstrates that it has fully phased out Russian crude in line with its commitments.

Ukrainian drones struck across four Russian regions before dawn on 4 August, setting fires at a Rosneft oil refinery and targeting two logistics hubs of Russia's largest online retailer, Militarnyi reported. The raid reached Samara, Leningrad, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod oblasts, hitting both the fuel that powers Russia's military and the warehouses that Kyiv says supply its army. Russian regional officials confirmed damage while claiming air defenses repelled much of the attack.

Syzran refinery burns again

Ukrainian drones attacked the Syzran oil refinery in Samara Oblast overnight more than 800 km from the war zone in Ukraine, and Militarnyi geolocated the rising smoke to the plant. A drone-danger alert went up in the region after 1 a.m., and residents then reported explosions in the city before a column of smoke climbed over the refinery.

The plant belongs to Rosneft and processes more than 8.5 million tons of crude a year, more than 3% of Russia's national total. It turns out gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, and bitumen, and supplies fuel to Samara, Saratov, and Penza oblasts as well as parts of central Russia. It also feeds airfields and military units of Russia's Central and Southern military districts. The refinery sits more than 800 km from Ukraine's border.

Ukraine's Defense Forces have hit this refinery many times before. Drones struck it overnight on 11-12 July, starting a large fire that analysts assessed reached every primary crude-processing unit. Samara Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said a fire from the attack in the region was being extinguished.

Astra says residents of Kstovo in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast reported a fire after the attack, though the struck object there stayed unclear. The city is home to a Lukoil oil refinery about 800 km from Ukraine.

Warehouses near St. Petersburg and Moscow

In the morning, Ukrainian drones hit a logistics compound near Krasny Bor in the Tosnensky district of Leningrad Oblast, roughly 820 km from Ukraine's northern border. Eyewitnesses filmed a heavy fire, and Wildberries confirmed a blaze at its facility there.

Its Krasny Bor site covers 154,000 square meters, one of the retailer's largest surviving logistics hubs in the region. Ukrainian drones burned two others in Leningrad Oblast on 24 July.

Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko claimed air defenses downed 17 drones overnight and confirmed damage to the warehouse zone near Krasny Bor. An OSINT analyst at the Russian Telegram channel Astra, reviewing eyewitness video, placed the smoke over a site holding two complexes: the Wildberries hub and a Lenta depot of 70,000 square meters. The analyst said the damaged complex could belong to either.

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Drones also struck Chekhov near Moscow, about 400 km from Ukraine, where Astra identified the likely target as a Wildberries warehouse. Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobyov confirmed the strike and claimed five people were killed and six injured. 

Why the warehouses

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously explained that Ukraine strikes what he calls "Russia's AliExpress" because the marketplace supplies occupying forces with sanctioned components for drones and navigation equipment. Ukraine's military command lists Wildberries among its long-range targets as a retailer that also moves non-lethal military gear.

Ukraine's Defense Forces began striking Wildberries logistics sites on 18 July. The company tightened rules on 3 August, allowing warehouse staff only button phones without cameras, after employees filmed the strikes and shared the footage.

Long-range Ukrainian drones struck the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar Krai on July 7, hitting one of the facility's technological workshops, a source in Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) told the Kyiv Independent.

Located roughly 500 kilometers (311 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the refinery is among the largest in southern Russia, producing over 6 million tons of fuel annually.

It is involved in the reception, storage, and processing of hydrocarbons and distributes refined products via road and rail. The refinery is part of Russia's military-industrial complex and plays a direct role in supporting Moscow's war effort, the source said.

The Russian regional operational headquarters claimed that "drone debris" fell on the oil refinery.

The strike marks a renewed wave of Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, following a months-long pause since March. On July 1, Ukrainian drones struck the Saratovorgsintez oil refinery in Russia's Saratov Oblast.

Kyiv has targeted dozens of refineries, oil depots, and military-industrial sites since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Winter drone attacks forced at least four Russian refineries to temporarily shut down.

This is the second known strike on the Ilsky refinery. Ukrainian drones, operated by the Security Service (SBU) and Special Operations Forces (SSO), previously targeted the facility on Feb. 17, causing a fire.

Krasnodar Krai, a strategic region along Russia's Black Sea coast, has increasingly come under Ukrainian drone attacks as Kyiv extends the range of its strikes deep into Russian territory.

HUR publishes Russian military order, claims proof of Moscow increasing military footprint in Armenia

HUR first made the claim on July 5, saying Russia was increasing its forces at the Gyumri base to exert greater influence in the South Caucasus and “destabilize the global security situation.”

The Kyiv IndependentChris York

Ukrainian drones struck the Saratovorgsintez oil refinery in Russia's Saratov Oblast, causing damage to the facility, Ukraine's General Staff reported on July 1.

"An important facility has been hit," the General Staff said via its official Telegram channel.

The Saratovorgsintez refinery and chemical plant, owned by Russian energy giant Lukoil, is located nearly 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Ukraine's border in the city of Saratov. The city hosts multiple strategic military and industrial sites.

The refinery was targeted to "reduce the enemy's offensive capabilities," the General Staff wrote.

"The occupiers use the capacity of this refinery to supply fuel and lubricants to Russian military units involved in the armed aggression against Ukraine."

The attack was a joint operation carried out by Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) and other military units, the General Staff said. A fire broke out at the site of the attack and damage to the refinery's technological installations has been confirmed. The full consequences of the strike are still being investigated.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.

The report is the latest in a series of announcements on July 1 about successful Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets. Earlier in the day, HUR released footage of Ukraine's UJ-26 drones, commonly known as Bober (Beavers), targeting high-value Russian air defenses and a fighter jet in occupied Crimea.

A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told the Kyiv Independent that Ukrainian drones struck a major Russian military plant in the city of Izhevsk, over 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from the front lines.

Ukraine also hit a Russian command post in occupied Donetsk Oblast, according to the General Staff.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones strike Russian plant 1,300km from border, SBU source says

Key developments on July 1: * ‘With surgical precision’ — Ukrainian drones strike Russian plant 1,300km away, SBU source says * Russian missile strike on Dnipropetrovsk Oblast kills brigade commander, injures 30 people, Zelensky says * Ukrainian forces hit Russian command post in occupied Donetsk Oblast, General Staff says * Zelensky signs ratification of

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk