Ukraine Expands Drone Campaign Against Russian Refineries as Both Grids Come Under Fire

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is expanding its long-range drone campaign with fresh strikes deep inside Russia, hitting another oil refinery, according to Al Jazeera, which also reported that Russian attacks killed three people in Ukraine. Russian outlets described the war from the opposite side. TASS reported that a Ukrainian strike on a vehicle in the Belgorod region killed one person and wounded three, and Kommersant reported that Russia's defense ministry said its forces had captured the settlements of Ukrainske and Kopani in the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.

The refinery strikes are the economically significant element. By targeting Russia's refining capacity, Ukraine is attacking the revenue that funds the war and the fuel supply that keeps the domestic economy running. Russia's own central bank has cited a temporary drop in motor-fuel production and Ukrainian attacks on refineries as forces pushing gasoline prices up and creating shortages in parts of the country.

The battlefield claims from each side cannot be independently verified, and the two governments describe both territorial control and casualty figures very differently.