Ukraine will conduct preemptive strikes against facilities that contribute to Russia’s war machine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
“I instructed our intelligence and our army to act in advance against the facilities the Russians use to scale up the war,” Zelenskyy said in his June 24 evening address to the nation.
He said Kyiv is already targeting and disrupting logistical facilities across the Russian Federation.
“Right now, our military is taking out targets that sustain Russia’s war effort both in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and on Russia’s own territory—the very things that make this war and Russian aggression possible in the first place,” Zelenskyy said, according to a transcript.
He outlined recent airstrikes that Ukraine had undertaken against Russian facilities, including ammunition depots near St. Petersburg; military production facilities, including those in Voronezh that create components for missiles; and Russian army communication centers.
“We are reaching deeper into Russian military logistics,” Zelenskyy said.
“We also have confirmed hits on gas facilities in the Orenburg region—more than 1,200 kilometers from the front line. There were also multiple strikes on oil facilities across Russian territory.”
He also said Russia continues to strike Ukrainian cities, including in Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia.
Russia Hits Trains
Russia and Ukraine have both been targeting fuel and transport facilities and other logistics in order to cut off supplies to each other’s troops.
Ukrainian authorities on June 25 said Russian forces had hit railway infrastructure and two petrol stations across the country.
Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of state rail group Ukrzaliznytsia, said on Facebook that there were two strikes that hit trains in Zaporizhzhia and that another train was struck in Sumy. The attack in Zaporizhzhia resulted in the death of the train’s assistant engineer.
“Two strikes in Zaporizhzhia and one in Sumy region,“ Pertsovskyi said. ”Two crews managed to evacuate in time, none of them was injured, and the third strike in Zaporizhzhia became a tragedy—the engineer managed to get to safety, but the assistant engineer who was in the rear cabin could not be saved.”
Pertsovskyi told Reuters earlier this month that Russia has already attacked more than 100 trains so far this year.
Household Power Curbs in Sevastopol
On June 25, the governor of Sevastopol in Crimea introduced limits to household energy supplies to avoid overloading the strained network, after the peninsula had experienced a series of aerial attacks by Ukrainian forces on its infrastructure.
“This measure is forced,” Gov. Mikhail Razvozhayev said. “It is necessary to relieve the overload on power grids outside our region in order to prevent an accident across the entire energy system.”
Sevastopol is home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet and is the largest city in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Razvozhayev had already introduced “enforced temporary measures” in the city to cut down on public energy consumption, which included early closure of large shops, cafes, and public transport, as well as the dimming of street lights.
Last week, Crimean Gov. Sergei Aksyonov suspended gas sales to civilians, limiting gas sales to government agencies responsible for security and other essential services.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 269 Ukrainian drones overnight.
State-run news agency TASS reported the ministry as stating that drones were shot down over several areas, including Belgorod, Kursk, Smolensk, and Moscow regions, as well as over the Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea.
Reuters contributed to this report.
