ABERYSTWYTH, Wales: Vladimir Putin has finally acknowledged that Ukraine’s relentless drone attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure are having an effect.Speaking to the ruling United Russia party on Sunday (Jun 28), the Russian president confirmed that his country is facing “a certain shortage” of fuel and that “strikes on our infrastructure sites are creating problems”.In fact, the situation is far worse that Putin admits.Russia has hit back hard at Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, launching massive strikes overnight on July 1 with a combination of drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, killing at least 17 people and injuring dozens more.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had warned that the Kremlin was planning another massive attack in retaliation after a month in which a Ukrainian air offensive has put considerable pressure on Russian defences and morale.Throughout June, Ukraine stepped up its strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure deep in the heart of European Russia, far from the front lines of the war in eastern Ukraine. Oil refineries in Moscow itself have been hit. All regions of Russia now report fuel shortages and knock-on effects are emerging with delays in the delivery of food and other goods.Russian-occupied Crimea has been a particular target, with regional authorities declaring a state of emergency on June 26 amid power outages, food shortages and fuel rationing that includes banning the sale of petrol to civilians.Crimea has been a focal point for Ukraine’s strategy in part because it has played a vital role in Russia’s war effort. It has been an important route for military equipment and supplies heading to the combat zone in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Control of the port of Sevastopol provides Russia with a foothold in the Black Sea, even though around 30 per cent of the vessels in Russia’s Black Sea fleet have been damaged or destroyed by Ukraine since 2022 and large parts of the fleet were relocated further east in 2023 under pressure from Ukrainian strikes.Even the remaining command and control units are now believed to be planning to pack up and move to Russia.But Ukraine has also focused its attention on Crimea as a target because of its symbolic significance as the “jewel in the crown” of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine. Ever since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the peninsula has been used by Moscow as a symbol of the success - and indeed the righteousness - of its efforts to claim Ukrainian territory as its own. The fact that Russia has been unable to protect Crimea from Ukrainian strikes is therefore particularly humiliating for Moscow.
