Russian air defences intercepted 660 Ukrainian drones overnight across twelve regions, the annexed Crimean peninsula, and the Black and Azov seas, the Russian Defence Ministry stated on Friday, marking the largest single-wave drone assault recorded since the full-scale invasion began. Hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced he had approved a 40-day “influence operation” by the SBU security service designed, in his words, to “compel” Moscow to end the war. The barrage prompted Kremlin-installed officials in Crimea to declare a regional state of emergency, citing severe fuel shortages, rolling power cuts, and the need to expedite compensation for damaged property.

Kyiv’s military and security services described the strikes as part of a systematic campaign to degrade Russian logistics and economic capacity. The SBU claimed hits on two Russian navy support vessels and air-defence radars in Kerch, while Ukrainian channels reported a second strike in two weeks on the Azot chemical plant in Tula, a facility Zelensky has identified as critical to Russian explosives production. Viewed from Kyiv, the intensification of long-range drone warfare—now exceeding 3,000 sorties this year, according to data published by a Ukrainian military support foundation—aims to choke fuel supplies to Russian forces and to demonstrate that no rear area is immune. Moscow’s Defence Ministry, for its part, insisted the vast majority of drones were destroyed and disclosed no details of damage, though regional governors acknowledged an industrial facility was hit and a woman wounded.

On the ground, the cumulative effect of weeks of strikes on fuel tankers, rail links, and energy infrastructure has produced a tangible crisis in Crimea. Authorities suspended fuel sales to private individuals, reduced train services to the peninsula by half, and cancelled children’s summer camps. Hotel bookings collapsed by 88 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to Russian business daily Kommersant. The state of emergency, announced by the Moscow-appointed governors of Crimea and Sevastopol, permits movement restrictions and allows businesses to invoke force majeure. Western military analysts assess that the campaign is forcing Russia to choose between protecting civilian economic activity and sustaining military supply lines, with the Kerch Bridge increasingly vulnerable.

Broader diplomatic and strategic currents are shifting in parallel. Zelensky separately warned that Belarus is nearing completion of military storage and road infrastructure along the Ukrainian border, a development that, according to Ukrainian intelligence, signals a possible attempt by Moscow to draw Minsk more directly into the war. In Brussels, the European Commission proposed excluding Ukrainian men aged 23 to 60 from simplified refugee protection, a move requested by Kyiv to aid mobilisation. The 40-day operation is now under way, and a NATO summit next month is expected to address further military assistance for Ukraine, as the conflict enters its fifth year with no formal negotiations in sight.