Ukrainian Attacks Cause Russians To Halt All Fuel Sales In Crimea

Not rationed gas for occupied Crimea: No gas. How long can it survive in the modern era without fuel? JL

NPR reports:

Officials  in Russia-occupied Crimea suspended civilian gasoline sales Sunday as Ukraine ramped up attacks on fuel supplies on the Black Sea peninsula. Ukrainian forces have repeatedly targeted fuel supplies to Crimea in recent weeks, triggering the worst energy crisis in the region since it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. A Crimean oil depot, as well as an oil transport facility in Russia's southern Krasnodar region were among the targets. He described the attacks as part of Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" against Russia's energy infrastructure. 

How Ukraine's Drones Broke Through Moscow's Air Defenses

Moscow is surrounded by a dense ring of air defenses and the oil refinery just outside the city - in which the top of a storage tank blew off after being struck (likely by a misfiring Russian anti-air missile) - is arguably the most heavily defended such facility in the world. And yet, Ukrainian drones found their way through with relative ease.

The reason is that the Ukrainians have been systematically and relentlessly targeting Russian air defense systems since the invasion over four years ago, degrading their capabilities. In addition, the Russian systems are aging and were not designed to hit drones which are smalled and more maneuverable than planes or missiles. And finally, there is the Russian penchant for internal competition, incompetence and corruption, which further limits their effectiveness. The combined weight of those problems is why Ukraine's drones will continue to get through to Moscow. JL

Lauren Kent and colleagues report in CNN:

Thursday's attack on Moscow – the biggest since the start of the full-scale war – was another example of how Ukraine’s strategy to overwhelm Russian air defenses with drones found success. Ukraine has destroyed 166 Russian “anti-air elements” since the start of this year, and 1,432 since 2022. Plus, Russia’s air defenses were not designed to combat drone. Video of firing man portable air defense rockets on a busy highway is indicative of a hasty, ad-hoc and unprofessional response to the attack. One defense missile missed its target, hitting an oil storage tank, “a Russian own-goal,” ending in a cloud of smoke and the  top of the tank blasting into the air. “Russia has a track record of old systems not being 100% reliable.” Modern drones break through because they are more difficult to track than missiles or aircraft. Hundreds of drones coming from multiple directions requires coordination from Russia’s integrated air defense systems, which “is not happening”

Moscow Is Burning Because Ukraine Stopped Depending On Others

Early on after Russia's invasion, the Ukrainians realized that even under Biden, the US and EU would constrain the Ukrainian military's ability to hurt Russia. In a way, Trump's election has been freeing, because his evident respect and liking for Putin - and disdain for Ukraine - made it easier to stop being dependent and start developing their own weapons and strategy.

The result has been miraculous: Russia is now considered to be losing on the battlefield, while Ukraine's drones have disabled as much as 20% of Russia's refining capacity, further degrading its economic as well as its military capability. The Ukrainians effectively answer to no one but themselves - and have no interest in or need to go back. JL

Anne Applebaum reports in The Atlantic:

By targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry, the Ukrainians have been applying sanctions of their own. As they grew to understand drone technology, the commanders and teams deploying battlefield drones and sea drones, concluded that they needed their own drones, as well as their own drone research and development, with a constant feedback loop between the operators on the front lines and the industrial engineers. No one wants to wait for Trump or the EU to impose new sanctions on Russia either. “The most effective sanctions—the ones that work the fastest—are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots.”

Brezhnev's Adopted Russian Soldier Great-Grandson Captured By Ukraine Troops

Awkward, but also interesting that a middle-aged descendent of a former Soviet Supreme Leader would volunteer in the fall of 2025 to serve in the Russian army in Ukraine. 

That was a period when it was already apparent that the Russian invasion was failing and the military service in Ukraine was a bloodbath for Russian men. Did he need the money? Was his family under political pressure? It is odd that a member of the elite would agree to serve given that the entire Russian system is designed to protect such people from such obligations. JL

Vladislav V reports in Militarnyi:

Anton Milaev, the 45-year-old adopted great-grandson of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, was captured by Ukrainian forces while fighting for the Russian army in the war against Ukraine. In the fall of 2025, he signed a contract with the Russian army and went to war as a combat engineer (sapper). By November, he had stopped communicating with his family. The family later received information that Milaev was being held as a prisoner of war in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Kherson region.

Ukraine's Drones Are Destroying Russian Jammers Designed To Stop Them

Among the Russian military's many problems is that when it comes to jamming Ukrainian drones, they are not just fighting the last war, they are fighting last year's technology.

The Russians have deployed massive, six trailer, eight dish jamming complexes costing millions. But the Ukrainians are now using advanced, AI-driven drones that don't depend on the signals the Russians are trying to jam and, in fact, can target the vast amount of heat those Russian systems give off. The result is that the jammers have become a prized and easily identifiable target for Ukrainian drone operators. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

The Russians are trying to even the aerial balance of power by jamming Ukraine's Starlink terminals. There are just two problems. The jammers aren't foolproof defenses. And they're also big, expensive targets for the same drones they're trying to defeat. A single Volna Kupol Garant complex includes six trailers, each with eight dishes, each tuned to one Starlink channel in the 14–14.5 GHz band, costs $1.5 million. Each could jam Starlink signals over 20 square kilometers. But There's no hiding when you're beaming 62.5 MHz jamming signals  into the air from a cluster of six dishes. (And as if that weren't bad enough) a growing share of Ukrainian strike drones carry onboard AI that locks onto targets without a live connection to a pilot—so a $1.5 million jammer built to break that connection has nothing left to break.

Hating AI Data Centers Has Become A Winning Political Issue

In a politically fractured society, opposition to data centers may now be the only issue on which those diametrically opposed to each other agree. The tech and AI industry just don't get it. They appear to believe that Americans can be overawed by their wealth and power. That AI and the data centers that power them are inevitable and everyone will have to buckle under. But just as 'the experts' believed Putin's takeover of Ukraine was inevitable and that Donald Trump's ability to get anything he wants is inevitable, people are stepping up to oppose the inevitability cabal.

Graduating university students walking out or demonstrating against graduation speakers have become the headline this spring but their motives are being inaccurately ascribed to fear about jobs. It is clearly far larger than that. It is about frustration with corruption, greed, unbridled corporate power and returns from a potentially society-altering technology being delivered to a miniscule few. Those in tech and finance may believe that their lobbying dollars will win the day, but they are not changing the underlying socio-economic resentment and frustration which will - inevitably - boil over. JL

Tressie Cottom comments in the New York Times:

Americans hate data centers. 71% of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area. More than half of all Americans support a national ban on them. In our virulently partisan country, this constitutes a rare show of consensus. The imminent risk of living next to a data center may be why they show up for a meeting, but they’re committing to the issue for bigger, deeper reasons (like) political corruption and corporate malfeasance. CEOs, financiers and developers present AI as an inevitability Americans must adopt, lest they be left behind, that data centers are necessary and public dissent is naïve or, un-American in contempt for the people who dare to do it. (But) people experience data centers locally, in dirty water and overtaxed electrical grids. The voters showing up to fight data centers demonstrate that a lot want something different.

Ukraine's Siege of Russian-Occupied Crimea Has Begun

By air and sea, Ukraine's increasing volume of attacks on Russian military targets in occupied Crimea have isolated the peninsula. This has made the occupation more difficult and less beneficial economically, militarily - and diplomatically. 

The one asset most of the world -including the Russian people - thought would be forever under Putin's control is now threatened. JL

Ilya Timtchenko reports in the Center for European Policy Analysis:

This is very much a siege in the modern sense, with serious effects resulting from militarily enforced isolation. Russia has reduced Crimean train services, vacationers are canceling their bookings, and drivers are forced to line up for fuel. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted military logistics routes, including the bridge linking Kherson Oblast with Crimea, causing a sharp fall-off in traffic. It has also hit oil refineries, Russian vessels, and air defenses. Kyiv is increasingly confident that it can build a kill zone over occupied territories to push the Russians out. As reunification of Crimea with Ukraine becomes a realistic possibility in the eyes of Western skeptics, Ukraine can expect more diplomatic and military support for de-occupation. The prospect of losing Crimea increases Putin’s troubles, since the one victory Russians were certain his regime could guarantee is now being questioned.