This week, battles continued to rage along the front lines. Ukrainian strikes on military sites and oil refining infrastructure are increasingly inflicting pain deep inside Russia. The strikes also target Russia’s supply lines in Ukraine’s territory it holds.
Ukraine liberated almost 100 square kilometers more land in May than it lost to Russia, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi said Monday. Russia is likely withdrawing forces from the Kinburn Spit in Mykolayiv region as Ukraine strikes its supply lines, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Monday.
Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s oil refining infrastructure are gaining traction. The Ukrainian military struck the Grushovaya oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai and the Krasnyi Yar linear production dispatch station in the Volgograd region on Sunday and overnight on Monday. Later in the week, Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s two oil pumping stations, 700 kilometers away from the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian drones struck the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region overnight on Thursday, triggering a fire at the facility.
Ukrainian Flamingo FP-5 missiles struck the VNIIR Progress plant in Cheboksary, in Russia’s Chuvashiya region on Wednesday. The attack was the second to successfully target the plant in a little over a month. It demonstrates Russia’s inability to fully protect its military sites, news site Defense Express said.
Ukrainian aerial strikes on Russian supply routes in Ukraine’s occupied territory in the south are becoming increasingly felt by Russia. A Ukrainian drone attack on Tuesday damaged the Chonhar bridge that links the occupied part of Kherson region to Crimea. This was a second strike on the bridge in the past days. Ukraine is conducting a campaign to cut off Russian supply routes to Crimea. On Thursday, it struck four bridges around the Perekop Isthmus. Fuel trucks were unable to reach Sevastopol on Thursday, further sharpening fuel shortage. Ukraine has been able to range Russia’s supply routes that sit 160 kilometers behind the front line in a full, permanent and round-the-clock manner, a Ukrainian officer told the New Age Defense Forum in Berlin early in the week.
Ukraine conducts campaign to fully cut off Russian supply routes to Crimea, commander of Unmanned Systems Forces says.
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces are mapping out a campaign to cut Crimea off from Russia, Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, Major Robert Brovdi who goes by the call sign Magyar told Reuters in an interview published on Thursday.
Ukraine’s escalating drone strikes across Russian-occupied parts of the country have disrupted military logistics and fuel supplies, prompting authorities last month to introduce fuel rationing in Crimea, the article said. Within another month, Ukraine would have total control over the road, said Brovdi.