The Washington Post reports:

The Kremlin is scrambling to respond to an intensifying campaign of Ukrainian drone attacks reaching ever deeper into Russia, hitting key arms production facilities, destroying an ever-greater share of oil-refining capacity, and causing fuel shortages across the country.

This week alone, swarms of Ukrainian drones hit oil facilities across Russia as well as the VZPP-S semiconductor devices plant, a major producer of components for Russian ballistic missiles in Voronezh, the Dubna Satellite Communications Center near Moscow, and a chemical plant that is key for producing Russian ammunition in Tula.

In Russia-occupied Crimea, rolling power outages were triggered across the peninsula by Ukrainian strikes, and fuel sales have been suspended, causing Russian-installed authorities there to declare a state of emergency Friday.

President Vladimir Putin’s government held an emergency meeting earlier this week on the escalating fuel crisis after gasoline production plummeted 25 percent across Russia during the week of June 15-21 and pushed dozens of regions to impose rations.

As nervousness mounts over Russia’s weakening position and an apparent shift in tone against Moscow by President Donald Trump, Russian stocks have fallen more than 13 percent since the beginning of June — the biggest market drop since September 2022, when a Ukrainian counteroffensive forced Russia to retreat from a large chunk of strategic territory in Ukraine’s northeast.

“There is a state of total uncertainty,” said one former senior Russian finance official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters. “There is a feeling that there is no good end to this in sight.” [Continue reading…]