Ukraine 40-Day Strategic Bombing Campaign Strikes Over 100 Russian Military-Industrial Targets

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said on August 4 that a 40-day campaign approved by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which it framed as "kinetic sanctions" on Russia's energy sector, struck more than 100 strategic targets in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territory, including military-industrial plants, air bases, air defense systems, command posts, oil refineries, pipeline infrastructure, and shadow-fleet tankers 123. Strikes on the Saky, Hvardiiske, Belbek, Bagerovo, Engels, and Khanskaya air bases destroyed a Tu-95MS strategic bomber, damaged two Su-35 fighters and two L-39 trainers, and hit the Yevpatoria Aviation Plant 123. The SBU reported hitting 14 oil refineries, including plants at St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Volgograd, and Ufa, along with the Cherkasy and Subkhankulovo pipeline pumping stations and the Filanovsky offshore platform in the Caspian Sea, and named the tankers Blue, Louise 1, Banda, and Avero plus two sanctioned cargo vessels struck in Russia's shadow fleet 123. Separately, SBU frontline and rear-area units destroyed 24 tanks, 63 armored vehicles, 124 artillery systems, 22 multiple rocket launchers, 40 air defense systems, and 14 aircraft or helicopters among more than 21,000 pieces of Russian military equipment and infrastructure struck, killed nearly 5,000 troops over the same period, and Zelenskyy has since approved a new round of operations proposed by SBU chief Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Poklad 123.