Ukraine sank a Russian ship and set three refineries on fire deep inside Russia. Ukrainian midstrikes hit targets in the Black and Azov seas, sinking the sanctioned Russian container ship Yanina, and struck the refineries in Bashkortostan nearly 1,600 kilometers away, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 1 August.
Yanina is a Russian-flagged container ship with a capacity of more than 100,000 tons, which, "thanks to the accuracy of our Defense Forces, went to the bottom," Zelenskyy stated. The three Russian oil refineries process millions of tons of oil per year.
"We continue our just pressure. The plan of long-range sanctions is being carried out step by step," he said, framing the strikes as the deliberate targeting of the objects that sustain Russia's war.
The strikes answer the Kyiv barrage in kind
Zelenskyy tied the counterstrikes directly to attacks on Ukraine, such as the Kyiv ballistic strike hours earlier, casting them as returning the war to Russia. Ukraine's soldiers "return the war to Russia and respond to its strikes against life," he said, thanking them for their accuracy, and describing Ukraine's targets as consistently defined objects that enable the war.
The same day, Russia's overnight barrage of 27 ballistic missiles and 185 drones killed at least nine people in Kyiv's residential districts, damaged an embassy, and burned ambulances.
Ukraine's strikes the same night sank a cargo ship and hit oil refineries, infrastructure that fuels the Russian military rather than apartment blocks. That distinction between striking civilians and striking war-enabling infrastructure is the line Ukraine draws through its whole deep-strike campaign, and Zelenskyy drew it again here, calling the refineries and the ship "objects that ensure the war."
The refinery campaign has idled nearly half of Russia's capacity
The Bashkortostan strikes extend a campaign that has become near-nightly and is measurably hurting Russia's oil industry. Ukraine's deep-strike units have spent 2026 hitting refineries, pipelines, and depots that turn Russian crude into fuel and cash. Bashkortostan, a refining hub roughly 1,300 to 1,600 kilometers from Ukraine, has been struck repeatedly, including Transneft-Ural pipeline nodes on 8 and 23 July.
The cumulative damage is substantial. The campaign has idled 42.74% of Russian refining capacity and cost the industry $13.5 billion since August 2025, by the General Staff's count, and Zelenskyy has said 40% of Russia's refining capability has been taken out of commission, with fuel rationing now spread across most Russian regions.
Reaching three refineries in Bashkortostan in a single night, nearly 1,600 kilometers from Ukraine, shows the range and tempo the campaign has built, striking the deep rear that Russia long treated as safe.
