The Russian operational rear has turned into a deadly roulette. Ukrainian defense forces have shifted to comprehensive fire blockade of entire regions, completely nullifying the offensive potential of occupation forces in key sectors of the front in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, planned for 2026.
But let's start with fresh strikes on rear logistics and military-industrial complex facilities on Russian territory itself.
In the Belovsky Forest near Belgorod (just 500 meters from residential buildings in the village of Belovskoye), a Ukrainian strike destroyed an ammunition depot intended for the Kharkiv group of the enemy, leaving a crater 100–120 meters in diameter.
A second strike in the village of Nikolskoye hit a position with military equipment. In Prokhorovka, Belgorod region, 80 kilometers from the border, a column of fuel tankers was destroyed using relay drones.
In St. Petersburg, at the Arsenal defense plant near Finland Station, which produces naval artillery mounts, missiles, and space components, a hangar with chemical reagents was blown up, blowing out a stone wall.
In Dagestan (Kizilyurt), three explosions were recorded on the Mozdok–Kazimagomed main gas pipeline between the settlements of Bavtugai and Gelbakh, with over 100 people evacuated. This led to a halt in gas supply to industrial consumers, chemical plants producing ammonia, methanol, and explosives, directly cutting off power to military infrastructure.
The most catastrophic strategic-level strike hit the occupiers' fuel infrastructure in the port of Mariupol. The Ukrainian attack, involving at least 20 heavy FP2-type drones, demonstrated a complete penetration of Russia's air defense system, previously considered impenetrable. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, verified by satellite imagery, a single raid burned 8 tanks to the ground and damaged 9 more. A total of 17 fuel storage units hit means the physical destruction of 50% to 80% of all oil product storage capacity in the port of Mariupol. This is not a local fire, which usually lasts 5 to 10 days after hitting one or two tanks, as previously in the Rostov region. This is an instant, simultaneous disabling of the main fuel gateway for the enemy's southeastern group. Considering accompanying images from the Grushova oil pumping station in Novorossiysk, where additional damage to 4–5 tanks was recorded, we can state the systematic and irreversible destruction of the occupation machine's fuel storage base.
Simultaneously, a total logistical blockade of the Crimean Peninsula is being implemented. Russian rail and road logistics in Crimea have reached a complete standstill due to the transfer of fire control to critical infrastructure nodes. A strike on the locomotive of the Moscow–Simferopol train led to the emergency stop of 5 trains to Crimea and 3 trains from the peninsula, followed by passenger evacuation. The assistant driver was killed and the driver wounded. As a result of a previous strike on an electric train, the Dzhankoy railway station was completely closed for boarding and alighting. Gauleiter Sergey Aksyonov was forced to ban suburban train traffic altogether on strategic sections: Armyansk–Dzhankoy, Simferopol–Dzhankoy, and Yarka–Simferopol. Railway connection with mainland Russia is now possible only from Kerch, where passengers are planned to be transported by buses, for which there is no fuel left in Crimea even to supply mobile air defense fire groups. The ferries on the Kerch crossing are destroyed, and the Crimean Bridge itself can no longer support freight trains. Road traffic is also blocked: due to damage to the Chongar bridge, the Dzhankoy automobile checkpoint from Kherson region is closed. Russian heavy trucks and fuel tankers are rerouted to the Armyansk and Perekop checkpoints, forcing them to travel through Chaplynka at a distance of less than 50 kilometers from the front line. This automatically brings the entire enemy logistics flow into the zone of guaranteed destruction by Ukrainian long-range drones.
A similar operation to strangle logistics has been deployed in Donbas, where the 12-year route of unimpeded arms supply through the Izvaryne border checkpoint (Luhansk region), located 200 kilometers from the current line of combat contact, has been completely cut off. Drones of the Third Assault Brigade and fighters of the K2 Brigade have taken the Debaltseve–Alchevsk highway and the Donetsk ring road (Leninsky, Budyonovsky, Proletarsky districts) under direct fire control. The occupation authorities of Luhansk region officially banned passenger transport on highways R-280 and R-150 (the Belgorod–Starobilsk–Luhansk–Donetsk–Mariupol route), effectively recognizing them as military targets. According to verified data from SBS Commander Robert (Madyar) Brovdi, the average daily traffic on the R-280 highway dropped from 11,000 to 6,500 vehicles, and the cargo flow alone collapsed by 71% – from 3,800 to 1,100 trucks per day. Civilian drivers are massively refusing trips due to the high risk of elimination. The Vostok group of forces received orders to bypass via dirt roads, where low capacity causes traffic jams that are destroyed by strikes from the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade and other units in the area of Horlivka, Yenakiieve, and Selydove. This completely breaks the Russian plan for 2026 to encircle the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk–Kostiantynivka agglomeration (the so-called "fortress belt") and blocks the offensive of the Dnipro group on Orikhiv and Huliaipole.
The highest manifestation of Russian intelligence failure was the elimination directly in the Moscow region, in Balashikha, of 57-year-old Colonel Damir Davydov – head of the missile and artillery ammunition supply department of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate (GRAU) of the Russian Ministry of Defense. His BMW X3 was blown up by two consecutive IED charges on Koldunova Street, 10, 240 meters from his encrypted residence on Kozheduba, 6. Davydov was on the Ukrainian "Kill List" for preparing the full-scale invasion. He tried to disguise himself by registering an OSAGO insurance policy for a Volkswagen Tiguan and Audi A4, but his elimination became possible due to the digital illiteracy of his 20-year-old son, Rafail Davydov, a cadet at the Military Academy of Logistics, who posted a photo of the BMW X3 with license plate U027ER on social media. This incident caused systemic panic in the Kremlin, since earlier Putin, at a closed meeting with FSB Director Bortnikov and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov, promised protection only to a limited circle of 10 top generals (after the assassination of three lieutenant generals in a year). The FSB physically lacks resources for the middle-level war planners, making every Russian officer in Moscow a legitimate and unprotected target.
On the line of direct combat contact, Ukraine's technological superiority was recorded in the first mass use of a new anti-bunker thermobaric munition with a devastating effect, named "Karateļ". The projectile has a specific parallelepiped shape with a heavy, pointed cone-shaped tip and tail fins for stabilization. Due to its mass and kinetic shape, it penetrates reinforced concrete ceilings of dugouts, basements, and command posts, detonating with a delay inside the room. The thermobaric warhead creates extreme pressure and a temperature fireball inside the enclosed space, leading to instant atomization of personnel. Simultaneously, a record simultaneous destruction of six large concentrations of enemy personnel in the operational rear was recorded (Kurakhove, Kalynove, Shevchenko, Stupochky in Donetsk region; Novogogorivka in Zaporizhzhia region; and Iskra in Kursk region), causing hysteria and mass dissemination of videos of destroyed positions by the occupiers themselves to reach the command.
The Russian supply model, based on the Soviet concept of hyper-centralized delivery of goods by rail to frontline stations with subsequent distribution by trucks, has been completely nullified by Ukraine's technological gap. The fuel collapse in Crimea, the 71% drop in cargo flow in Donbas, and the deployment of thermobaric means of destroying shelters create a snowball effect.
The Russian operational rear has turned into a deadly roulette. The ban on civilian flights and panic among contract soldiers will lead to a complete halt in the supply of ammunition and fuel to the front line in the near future, which will inevitably result in a systemic collapse of the front and a chaotic retreat of occupation forces.
