Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said Saturday that its forces struck a major fuel pipeline near Moscow that provides gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to the Russian army, calling the operation a “serious blow” to Russia’s military logistics.
The strike, carried out late Friday, targeted the Koltsevoy pipeline near the Ramensky district of the Moscow region, Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) said on Telegram. The 400-kilometer (250-mile) pipeline connects refineries in Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, and Moscow, supplying millions of tons of fuel annually to Russian forces.
HUR said the operation destroyed all three lines of the pipeline, which was capable of transporting up to 3 million tons of jet fuel, 2.8 million tons of diesel, and 1.6 million tons of gasoline each year. “Our strikes have had more impact than sanctions,” said HUR chief Kyrylo Budanov, referring to international sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The attack marked one of the most significant Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in recent months and came amid Moscow’s continued wave of drone and missile assaults on Ukraine’s energy grid. Ukrainian officials described the strike as part of a broader effort to undermine Russia’s logistical capacity to sustain its war effort.
Meanwhile, on the eastern front, Russia claimed advances in the heavily contested city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk province. The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had defeated a Ukrainian special forces unit sent to reinforce the city and later released videos allegedly showing two captured Ukrainian soldiers. The authenticity of the footage could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian officials denied Russia’s claims of encirclement, insisting that their troops continue to hold defensive positions and conduct counterattacks. “A comprehensive operation to destroy and push out enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing,” said Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi. “The situation remains the hardest for our forces, but there is no blockade.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged on Friday that Russian units had entered parts of Pokrovsk but said Ukraine’s forces were actively fighting to expel them. He estimated that Russia had deployed about 170,000 troops in Donetsk as part of its latest offensive.
As fighting raged in the east, Russia continued its overnight bombardment across Ukraine. A ballistic missile strike on the southern Mykolaiv region killed one person and injured 19 others, including a 9-year-old girl, local officials said. Another strike ignited a fire at a gas plant in the central Poltava region, while drone and missile attacks damaged energy facilities in multiple regions, leading to power outages.
Ukraine’s air force reported that it shot down 206 of the 223 drones launched overnight, though 17 managed to hit targets in seven regions. In Russia, officials said they intercepted 98 Ukrainian drones, including six approaching Moscow, while a large-scale blackout affected the city of Zhukovsky, southeast of the capital. Local authorities blamed the outage on an “automatic equipment shutdown.”
The latest wave of strikes underscored the intensifying cross-border assaults between the two nations as winter approaches, with Ukraine aiming to disrupt Russian supply lines and Russia seeking to cripple Ukraine’s energy system.
