June 25 (Reuters) – Ukraine will carry out preemptive attacks on facilities Russia is using for its war, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his evening address on Wednesday, as Kyiv expands strikes on energy infrastructure in an attempt to force Moscow into talks.
“I instructed our intelligence services and military to act preemptively against facilities Russia uses to expand its war effort,” Zelenskiy said.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian drones knocked out power in the biggest city in Russian-held Crimea and targeted facilities in central and southern Russia, as a fuel crisis deepened with Kyiv continuing to strike refineries and energy assets.
The capital’s Moscow oil refinery will be offline for at least six months after sustaining extensive damage in Ukrainian drone attacks, industry sources said, complicating Russian efforts to tackle fuel shortages across the world’s largest country.
Russia’s production of petroleum products and coke dropped 13.5% year-on-year in May, accelerating from earlier declines, the rare official data published on Wednesday showed.
Russia, the world’s third-biggest oil producer, has stopped publishing much of its oil production and export data since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
(Reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
