Ukraine’s drones hit major Russian refinery deep inside Russia
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- Ukraine's General Staff struck the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil refining and petrochemical complex in Bashkortostan — about 1,300 kilometres from the border, processing up to 74 million barrels of oil annually — marking the fourth Russian refinery hit in three days.
- Kyiv officials say the months-long campaign aims to compel Vladimir Putin to seek a peace deal, but the source notes 'there is no sign that strategy is working.'
- Orenburg region governor Yevgeny Solntsev publicly acknowledged that a Ukrainian drone strike on the Orsk refinery hit 'key infrastructure, which cannot be restored,' and that repairs could take up to six months given sanctions on foreign equipment — a rare Russian admission.
- Russia retaliated with 133 long-range strike drones overnight Wednesday into Thursday, killing at least four people across Ukraine, and a Shahed drone hit a passenger train in the Odesa region, killing the engineer and his assistant.
- President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN that Ukraine has 2.5 times fewer Patriot interceptors than in 2025 and has obtained only 1% of the 5% he requested from the United States, blaming low stockpiles on the Iran war.
- Four explosive experts from Russia's Emergency Ministry and a security guard were killed in Sevastopol, Crimea, when an unspecified Ukrainian weapon detonated as they inspected a prior attack site.
Why it matters: Ukraine is hitting deep Russian energy targets at a pace that forced a rare Russian official to publicly concede six-month repair delays under sanctions — yet Kyiv's own stated endgame of a peace deal is not materializing, and its air defense is now thinned because US Patriot stockpiles are diverted to the Iran war.
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