Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that United States weapon deliveries to Ukraine have not halted despite the ongoing conflict involving Iran, as Prince Harry arrived in Kyiv for his third visit in a year. Zelenskyy also stated that Ukrainian long-range strikes continue to inflict significant damage on Russian oil production and manufacturing facilities.
Zelenskyy on Strikes and US Support
“Of course, we are hitting what is painful for Russia, and it is very painful,” Zelenskyy said in voice messages to reporters on Thursday. He claimed that Russian losses from these strikes have reached tens of billions of dollars. While independent verification of his statements was not possible, Russian officials have acknowledged that attacks have struck infrastructure in regions more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) inside Russia.
Since the full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022, Ukraine has been using domestically developed drone and missile technology to target Russian territory. Additionally, the Ukrainian military employs American-made Patriot air defense systems to intercept Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian soil. “We see that the Russians do not want to stop — they are hitting our energy sector and our people. We will respond,” Zelenskyy emphasized.
Prince Harry’s Visit and Praise for Ukraine
Prince Harry arrived in Kyiv on Thursday, traveling overnight by train from Poland, the only viable route to the Ukrainian capital. In a speech to a Kyiv security conference, he praised Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s larger army. Ukrainians have demonstrated “strength not just in bravery and capability, but in unity, in trust,” he said. He urged Ukraine to “continue to hold together, and hold together you must.” It remained unclear whether Harry would meet with Zelenskyy, who was scheduled to attend a summit of European Union leaders in Cyprus later that evening.
Russian Drone Attack on Dnipro
Hours before Harry’s arrival, a Russian drone attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro killed three people and wounded ten others, according to Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration. A 13-story building and an administrative building were damaged in the strike, Hanzha reported on Telegram. Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its air defenses intercepted 154 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, including annexed Crimea, the Sea of Azov, and the Black Sea.
Massive Fire in Tuapse
Authorities in the Krasnodar region on Russia’s Black Sea coast reported that 276 firefighters were battling a huge blaze at the Black Sea port of Tuapse for a third consecutive day, caused by a Ukrainian drone attack earlier this week. Toxic material from the fire fell with rain, covering several districts of Tuapse with a black layer of dirt, the region’s emergency headquarters stated. Chemical concentrations in the air surpassed admissible levels, prompting authorities to advise residents to stay indoors.
Ukraine Targets Russian Oil Facilities
For the second consecutive night, Russia’s Samara region was targeted. In the city of Novokuybyshevsk, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of the Ukrainian border, a drone attack on an unspecified industrial facility killed one person, regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said. Drone debris also fell on a residential building in the city of Samara, wounding several people, with one person hospitalized. Unconfirmed media reports indicated that a petrochemical plant owned by Rosneft in Novokuybyshevsk came under attack.
Ukrainian forces also struck Russian oil infrastructure in the Samara region and a pipeline in the Nizhegorodskaya region that transports oil from Western Siberia to Tatarstan, said Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation. An oil refinery in the Samara region and an oil pipeline in the Nizhegorodskaya region were hit, he added, without providing further details.
Additionally, units of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) struck the Gorky oil pumping station in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, according to a senior SBU official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The nighttime drone attack damaged three oil tanks and caused a large fire. “The operation of main pipelines is disrupted, the efficiency of processing at refineries decreases, and transportation costs increase. As a result, this directly affects the revenues of the Russian budget, which are used to finance the war against Ukraine,” the official said.
