Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after consulting the head of the Ukrainian security service that he had authorised a 40-day operation against Russian targets to “influence the aggressor state in order to press for an end to the war”. Ukraine’s president said on Thursday that Kyiv’s forces hit two more Russian oil refineries in Ufa, 1,500km (930 miles) from the frontline, and an oil depot in the Krasnodar region, 300km (180 miles) from Ukraine. Aleksandr Kharitonov, head of Krasnoarmeysk district in Krasnodar Krai, confirmed an oil depot at Poltavskaya was hit.
Authorities in illegally occupied Crimea will impose more power outages, the region’s Russian-appointed governor said Thursday. A day earlier Ukrainian strikes blacked out Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city – coming as the peninsula grapples with gasoline shortages that have led to a complete ban on sales to the general public.
Power was fully or partially cut off across the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region bordering Crimea, the Moscow-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, said early on Friday. Meanwhile the number of trains to Crimea, a popular summer destination for Russian tourists, was being cut back, Crimea’s Russia-installed governor, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Thursday.
