Ukraine Turns Its Drones on Southern Russia’s Oil and Supply Lines
Ukrainian long-range drones struck warehouses, an oil depot and Russia’s biggest online retailer deep inside Krasnodar and Stavropol, injuring at least eight and killing one. President Zelensky confirmed the raids and said thirteen Russian “shadow fleet” vessels had been hit in the Black and Azov seas over 48 hours, part of a campaign Kyiv says is designed to drag Moscow back to the negotiating table.
The daytime strikes mark an intensifying phase of a campaign that since early July has targeted nearly 200 Russian vessels and scores of energy sites, choking the logistics that sustain occupied Crimea and the front. “We are justly returning the war to its source — to Russia,” Mr Zelensky said. The pressure comes as the Kremlin is reported to be hardening its peace terms, no longer intending to hand back any occupied territory and planning to keep parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions as permanent “buffer zones”, with President Putin said to be holding out to seize all of Donetsk first. Any negotiated end to the war appears to have receded further. Watch whether the deep-strike pressure shifts Moscow’s posture or hardens it.