As NATO leaders gather in Ankara today with Ukraine a focal point of the agenda, Russia continues to wage a campaign against the infrastructure of ordinary Ukrainian life, targeting fuel stations, destroying postal hubs and sending missiles into apartment blocks in the middle of the night.
Over 150 gas stations have burned down in two months, according to Andriy Pivovarsky, CEO of WOG, one of Ukraine’s largest fuel chains, who said that oil depots and other fuel infrastructure facilities come under attack almost every week.
In Chernihiv, Russian strikes on gas stations have become almost a daily occurrence, according to local authorities, who said that there have been 25 such strikes in June and July alone. On Monday, in Zaporizhzhia, a woman and an 11-year-old boy were wounded when a station was hit, officials said. And on Sunday, in Izyum, a 19-year-old was killed and four women were injured, authorities said, when Russian forces reportedly struck a gas station with a Tornado-S rocket system.
Russia has also repeatedly targeted Nova Post, Ukraine’s largest private postal and courier company. On Tuesday, the postal service’s terminal in Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, was attacked, the company said, and in June, a missile destroyed its flagship Kyiv sorting terminal.
Around 200 drones strike border territories and cities daily, according to Sergiy Beskrestnov, adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, with Russian forces increasingly switching to jet-powered Shaheds, which are harder to intercept than other models.
Meanwhile, attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding areas continue to affect civilian life. At least 27 people were killed in strikes on the Kyiv region on Monday, authorities said today. It was the second large-scale attack in just a week; last Thursday, 30 people were killed in the third deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital since the war began.