Russia Strikes Ukrainian Fuel Stations and Ports as the Energy War Widens

The reciprocal campaign against energy and fuel infrastructure between Russia and Ukraine has widened to cover the systems that keep vehicles and generators running. Russia is now targeting hundreds of Ukrainian petrol stations with missiles and drones, the Financial Times reported, in what Western analysts describe as retaliation for Kyiv's repeated strikes on Russian refineries.

Russian state media presented the escalation from its own side. RIA Novosti reported that Russian forces struck Ukrainian port infrastructure and, in a separate commentary, framed the attacks as having produced a fuel crisis inside Ukraine. The two accounts agree on the pace of the strikes and differ mainly on which side is imposing the greater cost.

The war is also reaching Russian territory. Ukraine's Security Service said it struck the Lukoil refinery in the Volgograd region, one of Russia's largest with a processing capacity of about 15 million tonnes of crude a year, and Ukraine's General Staff said its forces hit the plant along with the port of Taman and other military targets overnight. Earlier Ukrainian drones struck the city of Volgograd, where the retailer Wildberries said one of its warehouses caught fire and local authorities reported damaged windows in eight residential buildings, according to Russian business outlet Kommersant. Regional governors across several Russian provinces reported drone threats overnight before lifting the alerts.

Neither side is destroying the other's ability to fight, but both are steadily raising the civilian and economic cost of the war. Attacks on refineries reduce Russian export revenue, and attacks on Ukrainian fuel distribution strain a wartime economy that depends on imported and domestically refined supply.