Ukrainian strikes hit oil sites in Russia and Crimea
Ukrainian
forces have struck oil facilities in Russia and occupied Ukraine as
part of their campaign to impose economic costs on Moscow
ByThe Associated Press
June 8, 2026, 6:28 AM
KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian
forces struck oil facilities in Russia and occupied Ukraine, Ukrainian
and Russian officials said on Monday, as part of their campaign aimed at
making Moscow pay an economic cost for the war.
Separately,
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that Roman
Abramovich acted as a go-between for messages between Kyiv and Moscow.
Zelenskyy
told Sky News that the former owner of Premier League team Chelsea
traveled to Kyiv with a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskyy
said Abramovich brought the message that the Russians “want to
understand what we are ready to do,” and had offered to take a reply to
Putin.
Meanwhile,
the European Union’s foreign policy chief said a new, proposed round of
sanctions against Russia includes 80 listings targeting Russia’s
“military industrial complex, human rights violators and propagandists.”
Kaja
Kallas told a news conference after a meeting of EU defense Ministers
Monday that Western sanctions have already cost Moscow an estimated
$1.2-1.5 trillion.
Russia’s
Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 310 Ukrainian drones
overnight into Monday, including over the Moscow region, western and
southwestern Russia, Russian-occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov
seas.
Russia
targeted Ukraine with 155 drones, of which Ukrainian air defenses shot
down or suppressed 124, according to its air force.
Ukraine’s
General Staff said Ukrainian forces had struck Russia’s Krasnodar Krai
region overnight, hitting the Grushovaya oil transshipment base near
Novorossiysk. The complex is one of the largest transshipment hubs in
southern Russia for oil and petroleum products.
Russian
regional authorities confirmed a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at the
facility, adding that there were no casualties. While they did not
comment on the extent of damage, they said 130 rescue workers were
involved in putting out the blaze.
Asked
whether the Kremlin is worried about the fuel crisis in Crimea, Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Energy Ministry and other agencies are
working on a set of measures to respond to the situation.
“There are indeed certain problems at the moment,” Peskov said. “Measures are being taken.”
The
Krasny Yar “linear production and dispatching station” in the Volgograd
region was also hit, the General Staff said. A fire broke out at the
site, according to the statement. Russian Gov. Andrei Bocharov didn’t
specify what the facility produces, but said there were no injuries.
Ukraine
also carried out strikes overnight in the Semykolodezkaya oil base in
the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula on Sunday night, sparking a fire
at the facility. The base is used to store fuel reserves supplying the
Russian military, according to the statement posted on Telegram.
Ukrainian forces also struck an oil depot near Feodosia in Crimea, the General Staff said.
Zelenskyy
said his message was that he would meet Putin “any time” in any
location other than Russia or Belarus, and either bilaterally or with
U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders.
But he said Ukraine would not surrender the Donbas region, currently part-occupied by Russia.
“It was the key message. I said we will not leave and we will not go out from our territory,” Zelenskyy told Sky News.
Putin
said last week that a Russian businessman, who he didn’t identify,
traveled to Kyiv last month and met with Zelenskyy to hear his offer of a
personal meeting. The Russian leader rejected the idea of a meeting,
saying he saw no point in it.
Russian
drone strikes overnight injured civilians and damaged buildings and
businesses in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa and Chernihiv regions,
regional authorities said.
Ukraine’s
Emergency Service reported that four people were injured in the
Dnipropetrovsk region when strikes hit residential buildings. In Odesa,
three people were wounded after a Russian drone struck a public
transport stop.
Separately,
a Ukrainian drone overnight struck a passenger train from Moscow to
Simferopol in occupied Crimea, injuring the driver and killing the
driver’s assistant, Kremlin-installed regional leader Sergei Aksyonov
reported early Monday.
Akysyonov
added that no passengers were hurt. But all passenger train traffic in
Crimea was halted following the attack, with passengers evacuated and
replacement buses provided, Russian operator Grand Service Express
reported on Telegram that same morning.
‘There is little doubt that Putin is entering the most challenging period of his long rule.’ Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/EPA
Increasingly isolated president is determined to press on with Ukraine war, say well-placed sources, despite ailing economy
Vladimir
Putin pulled up to a hotel in central Moscow earlier in May in a
Russian-made SUV, dressed casually in jeans and a light jacket. Carrying
a bouquet of flowers, he walked unhurriedly into the lobby and embraced
his former schoolteacher Vera Gurevich, who kissed him on both cheeks.
He then helped Gurevich into his car and drove her to dinner at the Kremlin.
It
came just a day after several western media outlets, citing a European
intelligence report, claimed Putin had spent weeks hiding in an
underground bunker, gripped by fears of assassination or even a coup.
The
televised meeting was carefully crafted to reinforce a very different
image of the Russian leader, one which he has refined over 25 years in
power: the approachable, confident president, a man of the people
casually dropping in on an old teacher.
Kremlin releases video of Vladimir Putin meeting one of his old school teachers
But
while fears of an imminent coup are exaggerated, there is little doubt
that Putin is entering the most challenging period of his long rule.
Interviews with several people in the orbit of the Russian leader, as
well as sources in the Russian business world and western intelligence
officials, paint a picture of an isolated leader surrounded by an elite
that is becoming rapidly disillusioned, both with the faltering war in Ukraine and the economic downturn at home.
“There’s
definitely been a shift in mood among the elites this year … there is
profound disappointment in Putin,” said a well-connected business
leader, adding that there was “a growing sense that some kind of
catastrophe is looming”.
“No one believes
everything will suddenly collapse tomorrow,” the source said. “But there
is a growing realisation that utterly senseless, self-destructive
decisions keep being made. People who once defended Putin no longer do.
Any sense of a future has disappeared.”
Putin delivering a speech during the Victory Day parade in Red Square, Moscow, on 9 May. Photograph: Alexander Kazakov/Reuters
Putin’s
approval ratings are slipping, the economy is under mounting pressure,
and even pro-Kremlin bloggers who have rarely criticised the president
are beginning to speak out.
Despite the cracks
emerging at home, Putin’s calculus on the war in Ukraine has not
changed, and he remains determined to press on, according to interviews
with multiple people familiar with his thinking, as well as European and
Ukrainian intelligence officials.
Putin has
made clear to his inner circle that he believes Moscow can capture the
entirety of the Donbas region by the end of the year, two sources with
access to the president said. “Putin is fixated on Donbas and he will
not stop before that,” one of them said.
A woman sits at a bus stop in Moscow, in front of a poster advertising military conscription. Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA
Speaking after the 9 May Victory Day parade – scaled back amid fears of Ukrainian drone attacks – Putin surprised many by suggesting the war was “coming to a close”.
The remark made headlines, but those familiar with his thinking caution
that it should not be interpreted as a sign he is prepared to
compromise. Instead, it suggests Putin believes a military breakthrough
is imminent.
A Ukrainian intelligence official
said Russian generals had convinced the Russian leader that the Donbas
would be taken by the end of the year. “Fabricated reports [are] being
fed up the chain of command, claiming victory is imminent,” the official
said.
That bravado is not currently reflected
on the battlefield. Military analysts say that, at the current pace of
advance, it could take Russia years to fully capture the Donbas.
It
remains unclear to what extent Russia’s military and security services
are presenting Putin with an overly optimistic picture. “Even if many
around him understand the reality of the situation, we still don’t know
what Putin himself understands. That’s the most difficult part,” one
senior European intelligence official said.
Moscow prepares for a scaled-back Victory Day celebration on 6 May amid fears of Ukrainian drone attacks. Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA
“Of
course, officials and the military paint a rosy picture for the
president,” a person familiar with discussions in the Kremlin said.
“They lie to him. That’s how the system Putin has built works.”
Another
factor in Putin’s decision to fight on is that the Russian leader has
lost faith in Donald Trump’s ability to pressure Kyiv into surrendering
territory as part of a deal, according to one source close to Putin and
another involved in backchannel talks.
“There
was this widespread optimism in Moscow that Trump could deliver the
Donbas after his election. It has largely evaporated,” one source in
contact with Putin said.
Though Trump has
recently repeatedly touted that the war in Ukraine is coming to an end –
with US help – the Russian leadership increasingly sees little value in
continuing negotiations with Washington. Ukraine has acknowledged that
Trump’s envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, repeatedly pressed it
in a series of meetings to withdraw Ukrainian troops from territory it
still controls.
A
photograph posted on the Telegram channel of a regional governor,
Andrey Vorobyov, on 17 May shows a burning building after an air attack
at an undisclosed location in the Moscow region, amid the
Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Photograph: Telegram/@vorobiev_live/AFP/Getty Images
But
Kyiv also has dramatically reduced its dependence on Washington, while
stepping up its own military production. The unblocking of a €90bn EU loan and
deepening military and intelligence sharing ties with European allies
have further diminished US leverage over Ukraine, and Kyiv is not minded
to make concessions on territory in the absence of ironclad US security
guarantees.
For now, Moscow’s goal is the
capture of the Donbas, and Russian negotiators have made clear that
Moscow would be ready to sue for peace once this happens. Yet those
close to Putin say his ambitions may increase again if he senses Ukraine
beginning to collapse. Then, two people familiar with his thinking
said, he could push further, crossing the Dnipro River, in an attempt to
seize all four Ukrainian regions that Russia claimed to annex in 2022
but still does not fully control.
“He is not a long-term strategist,” one of them said. “His appetite grows as he eats.”
Discontent at home
Ripples
of dissent in society began surfacing earlier in 2026, when the Kremlin
banned or restricted most messaging apps while preserving access only
to a state-backed alternative.
Mobile internet
across central Moscow and other regions has been intermittently
disrupted or shut down entirely, causing Russian businesses to complain
of billions of roubles in losses.
Authorities
have justified the unprecedented crackdown as a security measure against
Ukrainian drone attacks and sabotage operations.
Police
speak with a man and a woman carrying a paper map, symbolising the loss
of access to phone navigation during internet shutdowns, during a
protest in St Petersburg against internet restrictions in Russia. Photograph: Andrei Bok/Sopa Images/Shutterstock
The
shutdowns prompted dark humour among Moscow’s elite. “At the dinner
table, everyone talks about the internet. We are now somewhere closer to
North Korea,” one Kremlin insider said. China’s internet controls, once
routinely mocked in Russia as a symbol of censorship, are now discussed
with a degree of envy.
The internet shutdowns
are being overseen by the powerful second service of the FSB, a feared
department within the security services responsible for the poisoning of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
At
the same time, figures within Russia’s political elite – including the
Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, and the first deputy chief of
staff, Sergei Kiriyenko – have privately tried to steer Putin away from
some of the harsher restrictions, but with no success, according to two
people familiar with the discussions.
“As long as the war continues, Putin will favour the security services,” said another figure close to the Kremlin.
“The
issue with the internet is a very sensitive one for Russian society.
And it has sparked a huge wave of outrage,” said Ksenia Sobchak, a
well-connected Russian journalist and daughter of Putin’s former
political mentor, in a telephone interview.
Police detain an activist during a demonstration against internet limitations, in front of the Russian parliament in 2025. Photograph: AP
Sobchak
said it was only a matter of time before Russian authorities went even
further and moved to block all western social media platforms, forcing
people on to domestic alternatives. She predicted the move could come as
early as next year. “I think a decision has definitely been made to do
that,” she said.
For many Russians, the year
has also brought higher taxes and rising inflation, with a sputtering
economy forcing businesses to close and sending the cost of groceries
and household bills soaring
Taken together,
Putin appears to have broken one of the unwritten social contracts
underpinning his rule since the invasion began: that ordinary Russians
could largely ignore the war so long as daily life remained stable.
Across
Russian social media, frustration with the authorities has become
increasingly visible. Videos showing small business owners railing
against higher taxes, residents complaining about repeated internet
shutdowns, and farmers in Siberia furious over mass livestock culls
ordered by officials have gone viral.
Russia’s
general happiness index fell to a 15-year low in April, a state
pollster reported, and several polls have shown Putin’s approval rating
falling to its lowest point since the start of Russia’s full-scale
invasion of Ukraine.
“Putin follows his
approval closely. He has monitored the polls obsessively since 1999,”
said Alexei Venediktov, a former editor of the radio station Echo of
Moscow, which was forced to shut down after the war began.
Venediktov
recalled how Putin once waved polling figures showing overwhelming
public support in front of him shortly after the annexation of Crimea – a
move the journalist opposed – telling him: “You are not with the
people. I am with the people.”
Coup?
While
it is clear that discontent is rising among the elite and the
population, most analysts believe that if a real threat to Putin’s
regime does emerge, it will come from his inner circle, not from the
street.
One of the more striking claims
reported earlier this month, sourced to an intelligence report produced
by an unnamed European country, was the suggestion that the former defence minister Sergei Shoigu
could emerge as a threat to Putin. However, an imminent Kremlin coup is
regarded by many supporters and critics alike as far-fetched.
Russia’s
security services, with Putin’s approval, have arrested several of
Shoigu’s closest associates and friends, further isolating the
once-powerful former minister amid speculation he himself could
eventually be purged.
Sergei Shoigu looks on during the Victory Day parade on 9 May in Moscow. Photograph: Getty Images
“Shoigu
has no popularity in the army and no support base,” said a former
senior official who knows him personally. “He will never move against
Putin.”
Dissent is also unlikely to come from
Russia’s oligarchs. Many are privately horrified by the war but remain
silent, fearful of speaking out, said the leading Russian businessman.
Recent months have brought fresh purges and a new wave of state seizures
targeting private businesses, most notably the arrest of Vadim
Moshkovich, the billionaire founder of a major agricultural firm.
“The
business elite are playing Russian roulette. They hope their neighbour
gets hit while they are spared,” said Oleg Tinkov, one of the few
Russian business leaders who spoke out against the invasion and fled the
country.
“Who is going to move against him? Everyone is simply waiting for his demise,” Tinkov added.
The
Russian president has meanwhile increased his travel schedule in recent
weeks, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to counter narratives
over his security and alleged paranoia. “Putin has always been obsessed
with his security, but it is wrong to suggest he is hiding,” said one
person close to the Kremlin who recently met the president.
Putin flanked by his security detail in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, in December. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
“Yes,
there is nervousness among the elites. Yes, there is uncertainty. But
talk of an existential threat to Putin’s rule is premature. He remains
in control.”
The senior European intelligence
official said many at the top were “currently in the acknowledgment
phase”, recognising the mounting problems both on the battlefield and in
the economy, but without plans to counter them.
“They understand it’s a trend downwards. But I haven’t heard of them asking ... ‘What should we do about it then?’”
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