Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered Ukrainian forces to launch pre-emptive attacks on Russian facilities used to support the war effort, as Kyiv steps up its campaign to cripple Moscow’s energy infrastructure. In his evening address on Wednesday, the president said: “I instructed our intelligence services and military to act pre-emptively against facilities Russia uses to expand its war effort.” The warning came as Ukrainian drones knocked out power in the biggest city in Russian-held Crimea and targeted facilities in central and southern Russia, deepening a fuel crisis that has taken hold across the world’s largest country. Industry sources said the Moscow oil refinery would be offline for at least six months after extensive damage from recent drone attacks, complicating Russian efforts to tackle fuel shortages. Russia’s production of petroleum products and coke dropped 13.5% year-on-year in May, according to rare official data published on Wednesday, accelerating from earlier declines. The country, the world’s third-biggest oil producer, has stopped publishing much of its oil production and export data since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In the wake of the renewed Ukrainian assault, Vladimir Putin said this week he was ready for peace talks. Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump called Zelensky “courageous” and said he was “doing pretty well” in the war. “He’s doing pretty well, no matter how you look at it, he’s holding his own at least. A lot of people dying on both sides, but I think he’s doing pretty well,” Trump said during a meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte at the White House.
“Zelensky orders pre-emptive strikes on Russian war facilities; Moscow oil refinery offline for six months after drone attacks.”
At home, Russia’s crackdown on dissent continues. Maxim Kruglov, deputy leader of the liberal Yabloko party, which opposes the war, was convicted of spreading lies about the Russian army and jailed for seven years just over two months before a parliamentary election. Kruglov, a former lawmaker in Moscow’s city legislature, was arrested in October last year and charged over the content of two posts on Telegram in 2022. He pleaded innocent at his trial and said he believed that the war in Ukraine was a tragedy that must stop as soon as possible. One of his posts referred to UN data about the number of people killed in the conflict, and another to events in Bucha, a town north of Kyiv, in March 2022. Russia holds elections for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in September.