Ukraine will ‘cut off’ Crimea from Russia, putting it in a power crisis | News of the Russian-Ukrainian war

The energy crisis in Crimea escalated last week, as Ukraine signaled it could control fires on the island to cut off oil and electricity, and Russian officials said there was no timetable for a return to normalcy despite Moscow’s help.

The operation in Ukraine, called “Molochka”, began on July 6. The head of the Ukrainian army, Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, said that it “stops the Russian cargo ships”, in a comment on his communication channel.

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Flat-bottomed tankers and oil tankers ferry from the shallow waters of the Volga-Don Canal and the Sea of ​​Azov to large tankers waiting in the Black Sea on the other side of the Kerch Strait, he said.

“It prevents the export of ‘black gold’,” said Brovdi, “and prevents the export of rare oil to Crimea through the narrow channel of the Sea of ​​Azov, leaving a large and dangerous supply route such as rail cars and tankers.”

In the first 10 days of the operation until July 16, Brovdi said, Ukraine hit 147 tankers of Russian ships. Most, 117, were tank feeders in the Sea of ​​Azov. The rest were in the Black Sea.

As of Monday, July 13, Brovdi announced that “the movement of the route has been stopped,” and the unloading of oil in Crimea has been “slightly reduced”.

Crimean Governor Sergey Aksyonov acknowledged the emergency in a press release, saying, “We cannot guarantee that gasoline is sold every day at gas stations, and we cannot explain the exact distribution schedule.”

He said the oil shortage would “continue for some time”, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to help the peninsula.

On the night of July 13, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) also hit several boats used to transport military equipment across the Kerch Strait, as well as oil depots and shipping facilities.

“The simultaneous hitting of several targets in different remote areas in one night shows that the SBU is expanding the scope of its long-standing special operations,” it said.

Ukraine also targeted Crimean power plants, hitting the Saky power plant on July 9, five power plants on July 10 and nine other power plants and the Kuban-Crimea power transmission plant in Russia on July 13.

“There won’t be a specific plan to bring electricity,” said Aksyonov.

“A deep and total blackout is inevitable,” Brovdi said.

Crimean authorities were turning off street lights to conserve power, and distributing generators to areas that had been without power for a long time.

Aksyonov said he is distributing 4,000 free cans of compressed gas to families for a week.

He announced a series of emergency measures to help businesses, including a discount on public land leases, a pay freeze until November, a debt relief program and a micro-loan program.

Crimea seems to be suffering the most, however, the Ukrainian campaign seems to be growing.

The attack on it and the Sea of ​​Azov is part of a campaign by moderate rebels that began this year to end Russia’s hunger for oil and weapons, as well as the Kremlin’s export revenue from oil.

Ukrainian leader Oleksandr Syrskii said there will be 7,028 successful mid-term protests in 2026, but the campaign has only just begun, with 2,000 of these protests taking place in May and almost double that number – 3,800 – in June, according to Syrskii; and Ukraine obviously has big ambitions.

On July 7, Russia said Ukraine tried to blow up a major compressor station on its TurkStream oil pipeline, which supplies 16.5 billion cubic meters of oil to Turkey a year, and has a similar capacity designed for Southeast Europe.

Gazprom, the pipeline’s owner, said it had thwarted three similar attacks in March and April.

“What the Ukrainian government is doing is no longer fraudulent,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow. “This is true terrorism.”

Ukraine war economy

However, Ukraine says its campaign has specific goals. It has also fueled a long-running campaign of independence within Russia, designed to shut down its oil refining capacity and cripple its military and economic infrastructure.

Long-range drones struck the Ilskiy oil refinery in western Krasnodar Krai on July 10, setting two of its refinery towers on fire. On the same day, they started a fire and explosion at an oil depot and an oil storage facility in the Rostov region, the General Staff of Ukraine said.

Two days later, Ukraine struck a major oil refinery at Syrzan in Samara, 700km (435 miles) from Ukraine, igniting two oil production units.

On Tuesday, July 14, Ukraine hit the Neftekhim Salavat refinery in Bashkortostan, 1,200km (746 miles) from Ukraine, and the Afipsky refinery in Krasnodar Krai, the General Staff said.

Ukraine hit 172 similar long-range targets in June, Syrskii said, and about 700 in the first six months of the year, spending about $6.1bn.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak acknowledged on July 10 that the campaign was working. The shortage of gasoline in Russia, he said, was due to the fact that “our oil refineries are not working at all because of their habits.”

These food problems are on the rise, according to several reports.

Russia’s gasoline production now covers only two-thirds of the climate’s needs, Reuters reported, citing two industry sources and its own calculations.

According to Russian statistics, Rosstat, the monthly increase in oil prices rose by 6.9 percent in June, following the increase in numbers in previous months.

“Everyone is well aware of the problems our economy is facing. These problems are not serious,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday, July 16, referring to the “stable” economy.

Russia is grinding to a halt

The war is not going well for Russia down in Ukraine, either.

Syrskii said Russia’s threat in the first half of this year “has more than halved” compared to last year, and that Ukraine’s military is now conducting two-thirds of the offensive against Russia, partly because of its greater advantage in short-range drones.

The ratio of Ukrainian production to Russia increased last month to 1.6: 1, from 1.5: 1 in May, he said.

“In terms of future trends, the parties have reached parity. There is a steady trend of increasing the share of the release,” he said.

This parallel was due to the exhaustion and hunger of the Russian army, Syrskii said. “In the past, the Russian army was doing dirty work in 13 operational groups, but now there are only six or seven,” he said.

“But,” warned Syrskii, “the evolution of war is still far away.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was busy bringing about this change on Monday, July 13, launching a missile program with France, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

“I hope that in the next 12 months, we will see FREYA in action,” said Zelenskyy, referring to the program, which is offensive and defensive, which aims to build the first European missile defense system and its first integrated ballistics defense.

This capability would allow Zelenskyy to use ballistic missiles to strike Russia more effectively.

They are already on the way to turning Ukraine into a center for military production within Europe, winning permits last week to build Aster and SCALP, Europe’s anti-missile and long-range missiles, respectively, following approval from the United States last week to build Patriot missiles.

Only one event during the week contradicted Ukraine’s record of success – the dismissal of its popular defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, after six months on the job.

Fedorov was clearly instrumental in turning money into power on the battlefield, and was largely responsible for the victories summarized by Syrskii.

Summarizing his work on offensive drones, Fedorov said, “We bought more drones in four months than in the last year.”