Vehicles stand in line for gasoline at a Lukoil fuel station on July 8, 2026 in Nakhabino outdoors of Moscow, Russia. Russian cities are experiencing a scarcity of vehicle gasoline brought on by quite a few Ukrainian drone assaults on oil refineries.
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Ukraine has stepped up its assaults on Russian gasoline tankers within the Sea of Azov, looking for to disrupt provides to occupied Crimea at a time when drone strikes have triggered nationwide gasoline shortages.
Ukraine’s drone pressure commander, Robert Brovdi, often called Magyar, mentioned by way of Telegram that 14 Russian ships had been hit within the Sea of Azov on Thursday night, taking the variety of Russian vessels caught by Ukrainian drones to 35 over the past 96 hours. CNBC couldn’t independently confirm this report.
The drone strikes kind a part of Ukraine’s marketing campaign designed to choke off provides and transportation routes out and in of Crimea, which Russia seized by pressure in 2014.
Located off the southern shores of each Ukraine and Russia, the Sea of Azov is a shallow inland sea that sits to the northeast of the Crimean Peninsula.
Protection specialists and strategists have described Ukraine’s drone assaults as pivotal in serving to to stall Russia’s army momentum, whereas additionally warning that Kyiv’s deep-strike successes have drastically raised the threat of escalation.
“The Ukrainians have efficiently introduced the warfare into the mindset and the truth of Russian life,” Beat Wittmann, chairman and accomplice at Porta Advisors, informed CNBC’s “Squawk Field Europe” on Friday.
“The response may be escalate or again down and negotiate, and traditionally the motion, in fact, in such conditions is escalation. So, I’d besides that they escalate from [an] more and more tough scenario and that can occur throughout the subsequent few months,” Wittmann mentioned.
Ukraine has often focused high-profile oil refineries in main cities akin to Moscow and St. Petersburg in current weeks as a part of a sustained push to chop off Russia’s vitality revenues.
Earlier this week, Ukraine marked what gave the impression to be one of many nation’s deepest assaults on Russian territory within the warfare up to now.
Plumes of black smoke had been seen billowing from a key oil refinery within the metropolis of Omsk on Tuesday, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to declare that the nation’s upgraded drone capabilities have put Siberia “inside attain.”
The Omsk facility is located almost 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) from Ukrainian territory and near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan.
Russia’s financial scenario
Lengthy queues have been seen at Russian petrol stations because the nation grapples with a worsening gasoline disaster. Certainly, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, lately acknowledged the impression of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian gasoline manufacturing for the primary time.
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, mentioned the “prices of warfare are mounting” for the Kremlin.
Russian gross home product, or GDP, progress stalled within the first quarter, in keeping with official information, following a pointy slowdown final 12 months and a brief enhance from surging army spending in 2024 and 2023.
“Whereas the personal sector appears to be contracting attributable to labour shortages, a shortage of some supplies and excessive rates of interest, the army sector continues to thrive,” Schmieding mentioned in a analysis notice revealed Friday.
“Until the Strait of Hormuz is closed once more for a sustained time frame, sending vitality costs and Russian export proceeds skywards, Russia’s financial and monetary scenario will seemingly worsen considerably additional,” he added.
Russia remains to be open to diplomatic talks with Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned Friday, accusing Kyiv of missing the willingness to maneuver towards a peaceable settlement.
A person refuels a automotive at a Gazpromneft petrol station in Moscow on June 24, 2026.
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“Russia stays open to attaining its objectives by peaceable political and diplomatic negotiations, and President Putin stays open,” Peskov mentioned, in keeping with Russian state information company RIA Novosti.
“However in circumstances the place that is unimaginable, as a result of Kyiv regime’s lack of willingness, we’re persevering with the particular army operation,” he added, per a translation.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy penned an open letter to Russia’s Putin final month, proposing talks and saying Kyiv is prepared for a full ceasefire in the course of the negotiations. Putin responded by saying he noticed no level in an in-person assembly with Zelenskyy for now.
