Reporting from Ukraine - RFU News (3 videos)

[TexasTowelie]

Note: I was busy attending my college homecoming this weekend so I am providing the reports for Friday through Sunday.


Acute water, fuel, and power shortages push Crimea back to Ukraine

Today, the biggest news comes from Crimea.

Here, a sustained campaign of strikes has set major fuel depots and key electricity nodes ablaze has pushed the peninsula into acute fuel and power shortages. With fuel shortages worsening, and the Russian state unable to deliver on promises of solution, ordinary residents are beginning to ask whether they want to continue to live as part of Russia or need another referendum.

First, Ukraine struck one of the biggest and most important oil terminals in Crimea with a precision drone attack, as that first hit ignited several tanks and produced a large, sustained blaze on the Feodosia oil terminal. After the fire partly subsided, follow-up strikes hit the terminal again and reignited burning zones, spreading damage to adjacent tanks along with port-side equipment. Open-source satellite and thermal imagery now show double-digit losses, as the imagery shows at least 11 tanks destroyed and multiple additional tanks badly damaged or in urgent need of repairs. The initial strike, re-ignition, follow-up strike, continued burning, turned a single incident into a week-long event that shredded Feodosia’s usable diesel, gasoline, and oil storage and left the depot smoking for days. With the terminal in ruins and visible flames in the background, pump prices across the whole southern Crimea spiked and queues lengthened as traders and residents reacted to the sudden collapse in available supply.

Terminals are built to resist rapid destruction, as tanks are spaced apart and fitted with firewalls, foam suppression, and isolation valves that prevent a chain reaction. Russians have now often added berms, cages or other external shielding around most tanks, which makes destroying them even harder. Rapid firefighting and cooling efforts further delay thermal escalation. Because of these layers of protection, a single strike rarely finishes a whole facility; repeated precision hits or prolonged thermal stress are needed to bring it down successfully. That is why a week-long campaign was necessary, but also so effective in damaging and destroying two dozen fuel tanks in a region already in crisis.

Feodosia was not the only target, as in recent nights Ukrainian strike waves ignited depot fires at Gardeskove and Karierne, struck rail-side storage clusters, and hit several major transmission substations, notably the Kafa 220-kilovolt substation near Feodosia and the 330-kilovolt Simferopol distribution hub, producing outages and thermal hotspots visible on Nasa Firms imagery. Russian-installed officials reported power disruptions across Simferopol, Feodosia, and neighboring districts as emergency teams worked to contain fires at multiple sites.

The civilian side is even worse, as local monitoring and activist channels report diesel and gasoline shortages in Zuya, Alushta, Perevalne, and parts of Simferopol, and occupation authorities have imposed rationing and a temporary price freeze to restrain panic buying. Two weeks ago, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov, promised quick fixes, saying 95 stocks would return in days and 92 in roughly two weeks. But those deadlines have long since passed as fires continued, and specialist repair crews were hard to mobilize. In short, damaged tanks and a ruined power grid resulted in leaving residents with longer queues, strict purchase limits, and unreliable supplies overall. Those conditions are bearable for a few weeks, but if rationing and blackouts stretch into a month to two months, the impact moves from inconvenience to economic and social harm. Small shops and taxis have already stopped operating reliably, heating and transport costs spike, and households exhaust savings set aside for emergencies.

Very rapidly this will turn private frustrations into public ones, as pro-Ukrainian slogans will increasingly resonate in the marketplaces and neighborhoods of Crimea. Persistent queues, repeated multi-day blackouts, measurable business closures in towns like Feodosia and Simferopol, are only the beginning. As Russian authorities in Crimea are unable to bring an end to the crisis, breaking promises along the way, genuine civil unrest will start to build.

Overall, the strikes on Feodosia and related energy nodes have done more than produce temporary disruption. By burning significant volumes of stored fuel and damaging distribution nodes, attacks have stripped Crimea of the short-term buffers that normally smooth supply shocks and have multiplied the burden on repair teams. Sustained shortages and power instability give critics of the Russian presence a clear, concrete grievance to point to, and they increase local pressure on Russian authorities who have so far failed to address restoration problems, risking genuine increases in revolt and partizan...

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Footage: Russians execute their soldiers in the field for “cowardice”

Today, there is important news from the Zaporizhia direction.

Here, a failed attack exposed the true state of Russian units, with elite VDV branding not being able to mask inadequate planning and logistics. As Russian paratroopers saw what awaited them with such a plan, many decided just to surrender to avoid a certain death, only to immediately become priority targets for their own drone units that received the command to chase and eliminate all deserters.

Russian VDV forces were redeployed to the Zaporizhia front to pin Ukrainian defenses in Zaporizhia as part of a combined operation. The hope was that this would split Ukrainian attention in the south, while another operational grouping would try to outflank Ukraine’s defense lines from the east and force penetration into the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Russian push towards Orikhiv consisted of a multi-wave assault against Mala Tokmachka, aiming to punch through and consolidate the area. Geolocated footage shows Russian forces advancing with 26 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles over the course of the day, but despite their efforts, 22 of them were destroyed by the Ukrainians by nightfall. Most of the soldiers were also eliminated, with survivors left abandoned by their own command, as a target for the Ukrainian drones clearing the fields.

Many Russians join the VDV forces believing they would be treated as elite warriors, trained, equipped, and celebrated. The reality is far more different from what was portrayed; paratroopers were thrown into the meat grinder in sequential waves, watching comrades engulfed by explosions as their own turn soon approached. Rather than a coordinated, overwhelming thrust, units were fed into attritional assaults by only several vehicles at a time, with little hope of success and zero plans to evacuate potential survivors. The psychological effect was catastrophic for the VDV recruits, as elite status evaporated into a sense of being expendable.

Faced with annihilation, a growing number of Russian soldiers chose surrender over certain death. A video from this direction shows a Russian paratrooper walking out of ruined positions to lay down arms, guided toward Ukrainian rear areas by two Ukrainian soldiers who accepted his surrender and took him as a prisoner of war. This possibility gave the Russian soldier a rational survival choice if only he had not been spotted by his own comrades. Soon after, two Russian FPV drones attacked the group, shockingly ignoring the Ukrainians but focusing on the Russian soldier who had surrendered, with the only goal to punish their own for choosing to live.

This ruthless Russian field response is intended to deter deserters by a brutal order. When Russian reconnaissance identifies their own troops moving to surrender, Russian FPV drones and artillery units are ready to act and strike the surrendering soldiers. Footage from Stepnohirsk shows another VDV soldier holding his arms up in surrender, but then quickly turning around and pleading with the approaching Russian kamikaze drone trying to kill him, to no avail. The two videos filmed and published right after the major Russian assault show that these are not isolated battlefield incidents but part of a growing set of evidence that such punitive measures have been adopted by the Russian officers to prevent mass capitulation.

If the Russian command allows surrenders, discipline will collapse further, desertion and refusal will spread, leading to uncontrollable manpower losses. To prevent this, the officers try to reestablish deterrence through public and private punishment but at a steep cost. Ordered executions of surrendering soldiers may slow the spread of capitulation, but they also confirm to recruits that the officers care little for their survival. Potential volunteers or contract recruits watching these developments are also less likely to sign up, creating longer-term recruitment and readiness problems for an army already strained by huge losses.

Overall, what began as a plan to use VDV as a fix for a stalled offensive has become a symbol of the systemic problems of the Russian army. Elite units are treated as expendable, led by a command that is willing to kill its own to slow down the collapse and avoid getting punished themselves by those higher in the hierarchy. The surge in surrenders and desertions is a significant indicator that cannot be ignored. When soldiers choose captivity over direct orders, the war of attrition is destroying the loyalty that the Kremlin still needs to sustain its campaigns.

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Western missiles storm Russian skies, as deep strike ban is lifted

Today, there are important updates from the Russian Federation.

Here, full permission was finally granted to Ukraine to use Western missiles inside Russian territory. The Ukrainian armed forces had a priority target list and started immediately by striking one of the most important drivers of the Russian war machine.

The night sky over Bryansk lit up with explosions as Ukraine’s Storm Shadow missiles cut through Russian air defenses. Ukraine’s Air Force, in coordination with Land and Naval Forces, launched a combined strike with drones saturating the air and depleting the enemy air defense, as Storm Shadow broke through in surprise, while the Russians were still unaware of the lifted restrictions. The main target was the Bryansk Chemical Plant, one of the cornerstones of Russia’s military-industrial complex, producing propellants, explosives, and components for Kh-59 and other missiles used against Ukrainian cities. Russian monitoring channels issued air raid alerts, warning of Storm Shadow cruise missiles inbound, and local officials initially claimed all had been shot down. Minutes later, videos flooded social media showing fireballs over the region and multiple explosions rocking the industrial area. The plant’s ammunition depot reportedly detonated after impact, and production at the site is now irreversibly halted.

Bryansk Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz scrambled to control the narrative, insisting air defense forces destroyed six aircraft-type drones, but the published footage told another story: precision strikes hitting deep into the industrial zone, with secondary explosions lasting for hours. Ukrainian sources confirmed the use of Storm Shadow missiles, marking the first officially acknowledged strike on Russian soil following the US green light for cross-border operations. For months, these British and French-made cruise missiles had been used to devastating effect on Russian-controlled territories in Ukraine, but now, they are reaching beyond.

The Bryansk strike followed a wave of escalating Ukrainian attacks on strategic Russian defense industry targets. Just days earlier, explosions tore through the Avangard plant in Bashkortostan, more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukraine. The massive blast destroyed the factory’s newest production hall, prompting Russian officials to speculate about internal sabotage. Soon after, the Sverdlov plant in Dzerzhinsk, one of Russia’s largest producers of explosives and warheads for anti-tank and air-defense missiles, was obliterated in another long-range drone strike.

Fires and explosions were reported at chemical and munitions facilities in Smolensk, Perm, and Krasnodar, all critical to sustaining missile and aviation bomb production. One of the most significant hits occurred in Nizhny Novgorod, where Ukrainian drones struck the Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant, a supplier of components for Russia’s KH-101 and KH-32 cruise missiles, the same weapons that have terrorized Ukraine’s cities in recent years. Russian media attempted to minimize the damage, but footage from locals revealed widespread destruction and prolonged fires.

For Ukraine, the political and strategic implications of these strikes are enormous. The Storm Shadow missiles have once again demonstrated their lethality and accuracy, penetrating Russia’s air defense and crippling high-value military assets. This success will likely accelerate further deliveries, as to date, between 200 and 300 Storm Shadows have been provided mostly by the United Kingdom and France. Usage has been intense, with Ukrainian sources acknowledging that by early 2025, stocks were nearly depleted. Production at plants in Britain and France resumed this summer after a fifteen-year pause. Output is now ramping up, from an initial from 10 to 20 missiles per month to a projected up to 50 by 2026, ensuring a steady supply for Ukraine’s growing deep-strike arsenal.

Storm Shadows’ effectiveness lies in their combination of range, precision, and payload. With a 450-kilogram warhead, possibility to penetrate and then explode, and a range of 250 kilometers, they are made for taking down hardened targets like factories, bunkers, and depots, objectives that long-range drones cannot destroy completely.

Overall, as Ukrainian strikes with Storm Shadow prove their worth, calls are growing across Europe to widen Ukraine’s access to other long-range systems. The next potential breakthrough could come from Germany, as its Taurus missile, with 550 kilometer reach and advanced bunker-penetrating capability, would give Ukraine an even greater ability to cripple Russia’s industry and command hubs far behind the front. A parallel can already be drawn with the tank coalition moment of 2023, when Britain’s Challenger deliveries broke...

[niyad]

1. Slava Ukraini. Thank you for this triple update after what I hope was a most

enjoyable weekend.