Vladimir Putin’s fuel nightmare has worsened as Ukrainian drones set two oil tankers ablaze in the Sea of Azov and torched depots deep inside Russia.
Thursday’s strikes are the latest blows in a punishing months-long campaign that has crippled Russia’s refineries and plunged roughly 50 million people—about a third of the population—into a fuel crisis on a scale not seen since the dying days of the Soviet Union.
At the time of publication, the tankers were still burning off Russia’s southern coast, Rostov Gov. Yuri Slusar said, with one crew forced to evacuate. It was the latest in a run of strikes on shipping in the area, part of Kyiv’s push to choke fuel supplies to Crimea, the peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
Drones also triggered a blaze at an oil depot in the western city of Tver, acting Gov. Vitaly Korolyov said. In the Stavropol region, burning reservoirs forced residents of several apartment blocks to flee, according to Gov. Vladimir Vladimirov.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 48, has cast the attacks as “long-range sanctions”—payback for Moscow’s refusal to stop fighting. “We have long proposed that Russia end this war, and every day of delay should bring the feeling of war to where it all began—to Russia,” he said.
The strikes landed a day after U.S. President Donald Trump, 80, told Zelensky the U.S. would grant Ukraine a license to build its own Patriot air defense systems, as the Associated Press reported.
While this would hand Kyiv a long-sought win at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, a top Ukrainian official warned homegrown Patriot interceptors could be a year or more away. Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, said the real obstacle is time, not skill, with some subcontracted parts taking up to two years to produce.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it downed 73 Ukrainian drones overnight. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said it faces its own barrage from 94 Russian drones and two ballistic missiles, saying 19 drones and both missiles hit 13 sites.
The Kremlin brushed off any idea that the strikes would expedite peace. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Washington’s stance “ambivalent” but said Moscow still welcomed Trump’s efforts.
“It’s a mistake to think that escalation and military pressure could pave the way to a peaceful settlement,” Peskov said, warning that more strikes would only push Russia to carve out a bigger “buffer zone” in Ukraine.
He added that Putin is “open to dialogue” and ready for another call with Trump.
