Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Ukraine couldn’t stop his military — even as Kyiv’s special forces struck deep inside the motherland igniting massive fires at a major oil terminal Saturday.
Putin insisted Kyiv, who’s been using longer-range drones to batter military and energy infrastructure deep in the heart of Russia in recent months, was turning to “terrorist methods.”
“The enemy is unable to contain this onslaught and is openly resorting to terrorist methods,” Putin said, speaking at a meeting televised live from the Kremlin Saturday.
“Our troops maintain a strategic advantage, confidently advancing, and no amount of shelling or drone strikes will change this situation,” he claimed.
The strongman’s spin came hours after Kyiv hit the Tamanneftegaz oil and gas terminal, a major export hub on the Black Sea, in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region.
“It is petrodollars that turn into missiles, drones, and ammunition that the enemy uses to attack our cities,” Ukraine’s Security Service said on Telegram, claiming responsibility for the attack.
Tamanneftegaz is the largest oil and gas shipment terminal in the South of Russia, with an export capacity of roughly 400,000 barrels a day.
Ukrainian drones struck five fuel storage tanks and two oil-loading facilities at the terminal, sparking fires that spread to trucks and warehouse, the security service said.
Nearly 100 Russian firefighters responded to the blaze, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, a member of Putin’s own ruling communist party warned Russia was on the verge of collapse as he demanded the dictator to put an end to Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
“The time of illusions is over. … If the situation persists, social unrest and chaos will become more likely. The West will inevitably exploit this to destroy the remnants of Russian statehood,” Russian Member of Parliament Vyacheslav Markhayev said, according to The Telegraph.
Markhayev is the latest Putin loyalist to break from parroting the official Kremlin line in recent months, as Russia’s economy sputters under the weight of wartime spending — fueling high taxes and inflation.
Even by the state-controlled media’s own public opinion poll, Putin’s trust rating plummeted to its lowest level since the invasion on Ukraine in 2022.
In April, a meager 29.5% of Russians named him as a politician they trusted, before the Russian Public Opinion Research Center survey was mysteriously discontinued.
Russian attacks across Ukraine overnight into Saturday meanwhile killed eight civilians and wounded another 62, as it launched 118 long-range drones, local authorities and the Ukrainian Air Force said.
With Post Wires