Ukraine destroys ARMADA of Putin's oil tankers as Trump gives Patriot permission to Zelensky

Ukraine says it's hit over 30 Russian vessels, an armada in the Sea of Azov, as well as three major oil refineries deep inside Russia.But Moscow has hit back with massive ballistic strikes on Kiev that overwhelmed Ukraine's air defences.But Donald Trump has signalled that he'll give Ukraine permission to manufacture its own Patriot missiles.My name is Jerome Starkey.I'm the defence editor at The Sun newspaper.And this is Frontline, your weekly roundup of the most important news from the war in Ukraine.

Today, we're starting with what's been happening in the Sea of Azov, because Ukraine has struck tankers many times over the course of this war and warships, but never on this scale.Ukrainian officials claiming that now 35 vessels have been struck in the 96 hours before we recorded this episode.That is extraordinary.Almost all of them.tankers designed to move oil across the sea as of perhaps to resupply Crimea or send it further afield.Also a tugboat and a dry supplies ship.

Also some reports saying a ferry has been hit, a Kerch ferry has been hit.Now this all fits into two of Ukraine's main efforts.The first is damaging Russia's oil infrastructure, its ability to make, refine and export oil.And of course, the second element is choking military supply lines and particularly choking supplies into and out of the occupied Crimean Peninsula.Let's look at the other strikes that have been happening against Ukraine.Russian infrastructure over the course of the last week.

On the night of the 5th into the 6th of July, the Slavneft Janos refinery, some 700 kilometers inside,territory, was hit.That's the fifth time that plant has been hit since December.We've also seen that night the ports at Ust -Luga and Vysotsk.Those are north and south of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, so west of St. Petersburg, the city of St. Petersburg, variously 900 and 1 ,000 kilometers from Kiev.Ukrainian territory.

There have been total blackouts separately recorded in Crimea.That's to the south in occupied Crimea, south of in the south of Ukraine.And most recently, the refinery at Omsk, that is Russia's largest refinery that accounts for seven percent of its total production, some two thousand five hundred kilometers inside Russian soil.That has been hit.And I said most recently, but actually since then overnight on the 8th into the 9th of July.the Nizhny Kamsk refinery some 750 kilometers has been struck and two more oil depots at Stavropol and Tver which are both about 500 kilometers inside Russian territory.

Now to just put some of that in perspective.Not only is this the latest continuous strike against this infrastructure, against this oil infrastructure, the distances involved are staggering.So Omsk, two and a half thousand kilometres from Ukrainian territory.That is the equivalent of launching a drone in New York.to hit a target in Cancun in Mexico, on the Gulf of Mexico.

And to be fair, those drones may well have flown more than 2 ,500 kilometres.Ukraine's special operations force is suggesting that actually those drones flew 3 ,000 kilometres as they often do not take the shortest linear routes to their targets.

An interesting analysis of all of this in the Financial Times this week, pointing out that 50 regions in Russia have now imposed sanctionssort of restrictions on the sale of gasoline and oil products.Russia's stated refining, the amount of oil that Russia is refining, is 4 .1 million barrels per day.It sounds like a lot, but that is 28 % lower.than this time last year.It's also been importing 141 ,000 tons of oil from Belarus.

Not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but the FT says 141 times more than it imported this time last year.

Other consequences, oil companies, major Russian oil companies are once again discussing plans for employing effectively private militias to defend their sites.And that's a reflection of two things.It's a reflection of how successful successful Ukraine's long -range strikes against oil infrastructure have become, how frequent they've become, but also how unsuccessful or overstretched Russia's air defense network is, how unable the Russian military at the moment is to defend these key sites.

Now, I mentioned already the power, the complete power blackouts that we witnessed in Crimea.

Other consequences there have been.Continuous strikes across various targets in Crimea, including radar stations, electricity substations.And we've heard President Putin further acknowledging this impact on ordinary people, as he directed Russia's finance ministry to accelerate bailouts, financial support for people in Crimea, in his words, so that citizens shouldn't feel the burden of this conflict.That's interesting language.This is the special military operation that Putin waged, a war of choice that he started, and he is now acknowledging that citizens are feeling the burden of this war.And that is also one of Ukraine's objectives.

Primarily, they're hitting oil in order to reduce Russia's influence.to hit the Kremlin's coffers, to make it harder for the Russian economy to finance the war effort.But equally, these strikes deep inside Russian territory, often close to major cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, are also about bringing the reality of this conflict home to ordinary people without hitting civilian targets.Life is getting more difficult.We've seen the queues at petrol stations.

We've seen fights breaking out in those queues we've seen some comedy memes coming out from the Russians about how they're handling these shortages but the fact is it is becoming a new reality of life in Russia people cannot ignore the fact that their country has been waging a war for over four years because that war is being brought home to them We've also seen in this same vein diesel exports from Russia banned and the government has authorised the sale of lower quality, less refined diesel products to try and ease those shortages.Of course, it's never one way.And Russia has hit back this week with two massive ballistic missile strikes on Kiev.This builds on what was happening last week.We talked about it again.And once again, Ukraine has found itself in the situation where whilst it can defend itself against most of the drones and the cruise missiles, which are slower flying missiles, it's been unable to shoot down the ballistic missiles.

These are faster, devastating weapons that can reach their targets very, very quickly, fly very, very high, plummet quickly down onto their targets.It requires intercepting ballistic missiles is about the most difficult task, especially if those ballistic missiles are remotely manoeuvrable.That's sometimes what we see with the Zircon or the Kinzhal hypersonic weapons that Putin's called hypersonic.Ukraine needs those most advanced Patriot missiles, America's most advanced air defence weapons to shoot themdown.And Zelensky's been very clear.

President Zelensky's been very clear.Ukraine hasn't got enough.It needs more.And his first response to one of those big strikes was to demand allies honour their existing commitments.We saw 15 civilians killed on the night of the 5th and the 6th of July.That was 68 missiles fired in that barrage and over 351 drones.

Overnight, on the 8th to the 9th of July, another 12 people were killed across Ukraine, some 100 injured.

We've also seen footage of other Russian strikes, smaller scale Russian strikes, drone strikes targeting railway infrastructure, petrol stations, what Russia claimed was a warehouse.One of these clips, I should say, included a FPV fiber optic drone.

So those are the relatively small weapons, you'll remember, tethered to their controllers by a thread of fiber optic cable, which means they cannot be jammed, flying into central Kharkiv city and hitting a petrol station.It fits a similar pattern hitting some of those targets.Russia also trying to disrupt Ukraine's fuel logistics, its supply chains and its ability for ordinary people and crucially also for the military to fuel their vehicles to operate and to move around.

Also in the close battle, Russia has launched or appears to be continuing a new offensive in Kupyansk, that's northeastern Kharkiv province.

Kupyansk has been fought over so many times over these last four years.This is at least the third time that this city or parts of this city have changed hands.Ukraine won it back a few months ago.You remember President Zelensky went to the edge of the town in sort of defiant act to disprove Russia's claims that they control it.Russian forces are now assaulting again.They're also assaulting further to the northwest in Sumy, which appears to be perhaps a diversion, a distraction to try and force Ukraine to commit forces that

to divert them from elsewhere.Ukraine has hit back in Kupyansk by downing a bridge deep behind that Kupyansk front to try and disrupt Russia's logistics, disrupt its ability to supply those forces on the front.Increasingly, every time we're talking about battles, this idea of disrupting the rear is becoming more and more important.But the difference is where you consider that rear to be, whether it's the of 5, the 10, the 50 kilometers, or indeed the 2 ,500 kilometers.And reflecting on that, we heard from President Zelensky this week saying the idea that Russia has a strategic rear an area that is beyond the reach of its enemy, beyond the reach of Ukraine, is now a myth.And he said that as the strikes that we've talked about were taking place.

Finally, before we get to questions, we'll talk about the politics.There's been a NATO summit in Ankara where President Zelensky and President Trump had what appears to have been a very successful meeting, a refreshingly successful meeting.One of the high points of that was when Trump asked Zelensky, would he go to to Moscow, and Zelensky answered, it's difficult.There are a lot of Ukrainian drones.It's dangerous.So a fantastic opportunity for the comedian -turned -president to use his wit to just emphasize the fact that Ukraine has, at least at this point in the conflict, gained some level of upper hand in its ability to strike deep into Russia, to hit targets in and around Moscow, almost at will.

Now, Russia has that ability as well, but Russia's had that ability since the first day of the war.What is different is Ukraine has got itself onto that level as well.

At the end of that summit in Ankara, Ukraine left with some 80 billion dollars worth of commitments for military aid and crucially,President Trump said, we're going to give you guys a license to make patriots.Now, that's massive.There is a big gap sometimes between what Donald Trump says and what Donald Trump does.There is inevitably a delay between promises becoming reality.But Trump made the point that, yes, America has patriots, but he said we need them because we haven't got that many.

That's a reflection not just of what may or may not have been given to Ukraine, but far more a reflection of what has been used to defend the Gulf after Donald Trump and Israel started bombing Iran.They have burned through stocks of Patriot missiles.

Manufacturing rates are about 600 a year.They're hard to make.But to give Ukraine the opportunity to make those missiles on its soil is potentially huge, because Ukraine has developed its arms industry, its technology, so rapidly, so quickly, because it is facing this existential threat and it has no choice, that to allow it to manufacture Patriots could really increase and perhaps for the first time in the conflict, give it the opportunity to do what Zelensky was asking from day one, which is to close the skies.Now, thank you as ever for your questions and your comments.As I keep saying, they make me laugh.They make me think.

I love reading them.We've had such a fantastic response to last week's video.Over 1 .5 million of you have watched it.So thank you for watching.Three questions I'm going to get through today.Question number one.

Germany has accused Ukraine of directing the attacks on Nord Stream 2.

Ukraine says it had no prior knowledge.Is Germany accusing Zelensky and Ukraine of lying?Well, clearly, this is a German court.So it's not the German state because there is a separation between state and court in Germany.But it's German prosecutors clearly disputing the versions of events.And yes, there are two versions.

versions.So those that say Ukraine was involved and those that say Ukraine, which says it was not involved, are disagreeing.Is it a direct accusation of lying?No, but I mean, that is the nature of a court proceeding.If somebody is prosecuted and they claim that they're not guilty, then one side is accusing the other of lying.In fact, both sides accusing each other of lying, although that isn't the word that's used.

This remains a deeply contested incident.You remember the Nord Stream gas pipeline that was about to start pumping.gas from Russia to Germany was blown up in the Baltic Sea.Suspicion variously pointed at Russia, although that was never quite made sense why Russia would do that.And also at Ukraine, because fundamentally, you could understand why Ukraine might do it, because it took out this option, this lever that Moscow had over Berlin, which was dangling the promise of cheap gas if Germany did it.refused to support Ukraine.

Germany has swung behind Ukraine.So without that lever, and for various other reasons, Germany is squarely behind Ukraine.Question number two, why is NATO still trading with Russia?It doesn't make sense.It's a really good question.Why, when an alliance is so squarely behind defending Ukraine, would its member nations continue to trade with the aggressor?

Because that trade allows them to profit, puts money in the coffers, helps resource that war machine like we were talking about earlier with the fuel.So I've had a quick look at this.Imports and exports.And I've looked at the EU with Russia rather than NATO writ large.But between the EU and Russia, EU imports from Russia are down 90 per cent.

EU exports to Russia are down 60 per cent.That is pretty big.And Russia now, so big drops.

And Russianow accounts for just 1 % of EU trade.And in total, according to the European Commission, trade between Russia and the EU last year was worth $58 billion.euros.That's compared to about 260 billion euros in 2021, so five years ago before the conflict started.Fundamentally, the question is really sensible.

In an ideal world, there would be no trade.It's not an ideal world.There are some commodities that nations need from each other.There are the economies of countries in Europe may yet to have found ways to circumvent the need for Russian supplies and vice versa.But fundamentally, I think an element of this is also that private companies, unless they are explicitly banned by sanctions or law, will continue to trade where they see opportunities for profit, because that is the nature of capitalism and free market economies.Final question today, what would it take for China's Xi Jinping to say enough is enough?

It's really interesting because it supposes, I think, the question that China wields that influence over Russia, over Moscow, that China, Beijing could just say to Putin, stop.And I think to some extent that's true.China is now absolutely the dominant power, the dominant partner in that relationship.But fundamentally, at the moment, China is benefiting from what's happening between Russia and Ukraine.Its neighbour is weakening itself.Russia, potentially once a threat, is weakening itself as it grinds its armed forces away in Ukraine.

It is buying.It's been forced to buy a lot of materiel from China.So China is profiting.And that's partly because of the sanctions imposed by so many of Ukraine's allies have forced Russia to look for alternatives.And those alternatives are China.But there is also risk to China, because fundamentally what it

brutalised armed force and an aggressive military posture.If it ends in a chaotic way, then China risks a sort of internal collapse in Russia.And chaos has a habit of spreading across borders.What would it take?The only thing we've seen so far where China has said enough is enough is when Vladimir Putin in the first autumn of the conflicts around October 2022, when Putin was considering using a tactical nuclear weapon as a major demonstration of force, China and India at the behest of Britain and America stepped in to say to Moscow, absolutely not.That is a red line.

Do not cross it.And as far as we can tell, that worked.Thank you for watching.

Thank you for your questions.As I say, if you do have any questions, please do ask them in the comments below.And if you haven't checked out Arms Race yet, which is our defence technology show, please do have a look.Arms Race on the Sun.We've been looking at CV90, the infantry fighting vehicle that would defend Europe in the event of World War Three.

We've also had a look at laser weapons, Britain's new Challenger 3 tank, and how artillery shells are made.We went inside an artillery shell factory in the north of England.That's Arms Race on the Sun's YouTube channel.I look forward to seeing you next time.