Ukraine scores 1,000-mile strike inside Russia as Putin rushes air defences to capital

Moscow has issued bomb shelter maps and surged air defences into the capital as seven more strikes on Wild Berries warehouses bring the war home to Russia.President Zelensky�s 40 -day surge is about to reach its climax.There�s been a successful strike on an aircraft plant in occupied Crimea, but Russia has punched back hard, slaying a family of six with a North Korean missile, a suspected strike on NATO territory, a mushroom cloud over Khmelnytskyi, car bombs in Odessa and an F -16 down.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.

It's been a very big week.I'm going to make sense of it here over the next 20 or so minutes.We're starting with Moscow officials' decisions to issue bomb shelter maps.These are particularly for areas in the southeastern suburbs of the capital.They show hundreds of shelters, cellars beneath buildings, Why have they done this?Well, that's what's important.

It's because Ukraine's long range strikes are getting through to the capital.People are understandably scared.The war has come home to Russia.In the last seven days, we've seen at least eight more strikes on wild berries plants, not just against those around Moscow, across the country, some around a thousand miles into the country.But nonetheless, It comes with this dramatic footage of Ukrainian drones flying low and fast.This is supposed to be safe territory for Russians.

It's supposed to be protected.But Ukraine is proving that it's not.Those strikes on the wild berries plants range from Sarapul, some eight hundred and fifty miles inside Russian territory, to occupiedCrimea.And it follows previous strikes that we talked about last week.These strikes have had two important consequences.

Number one, we see that scramble to bolster Moscow's air defences.Now, this has been mapped by a journalist using satellite imagery who works for Radio Free Europe or Radio Liberty.He's detected 24 New air defense towers built around the Russian capital over the last two months These are primarily for the panzer short range air defence missiles.You remember we talked about a shortage of those missiles.Russia was facing a crunch point around the beginning of this year.Now, that crunch point may have passed, but the tempo of Ukrainian operations, the fact we're able to fire so many drones so often is going to mean that Russia's supplies of those missiles remain very, very stretched.

And that may be part of the reason that Ukraine is having so much success in in its long range strikes.The second consequence is a looming banking crisis.Wildberries is Russia's largest online retailer.The answer often described as Russia's answer to Amazon.It is taking a hammering.It also has its own bank as part of the company.

But we've heard from Sberbank, which is Russia's largest lender, that risks Two online retailers are increasing.It's talked about the number, the level of bad debt on its portfolio increasing, the risk increasing.And we've had the same thing from VTB, which is also a bank.That's the second largest lender in Russia.It's a banking partner of Wild Berries and Wild Berries has stopped its loan repayment.So fundamentally, massive company, massive debtor and lender.

So integral to Russia's financial economic machine.under enormous strain.Also, in the long range strikes that Ukraine's been carrying out on the 29th of July, we saw the vast Lugoyil oil refinery in Perm struck.That's a thousand miles inside Russian territory.A weapons plant in Kirov was hit.That's some 760 miles inside Russian territory.

And also an oil refinery at Chumen, a lubricant depot in Rostov, logistics factory in Yekaterinburg.On a slightly different Note in the Caspian Sea, President Zelensky said Ukrainian long range drones had set had hit several targets, including a warship, but also cargo vessels transporting military material from Iran to Russia.Remember, the Caspian is effectively a huge body of water linking those two rogue allies.

Tehran has responded with threats that if it's vessels or interests are targeted that it will reply, there will be reprisals against Ukraine.But again, that threat from Tehran, a sign that Ukraine's strikes have made a difference.

We've also heard from the Azov Corps that they hit a drone, an anti -tank rather, one of their drones hit an anti -tank mine storage facility in Donetsk.

Very dramatic footage of that drone flying into the storage site and then all of these anti -tank mines erupting.

And overnight, we've heard from the SBU, Ukraine's domestic intelligence service, that it's hit an aircraft repair plant in Yevpatoria in Crimea.

It's also hit the port in Taman on the Russian side of the Kerch Strait.All of this is about the tempo of operations.That's become really important to Ukraine.It's not just about hitting important targets, It's about hitting them regularly and at a pace where they inflict damage faster than Russia is able to repair it.

And that's not necessarily anything new.Russia is also trying to do that in reply.In order to make that successful, We've heard from the Ukrainians that they're being very precise about what they target.

So it's not necessarily just about blowing up a fuel depot.It might be about destroying certain valves or parts on that depot or that refinery or that ammunition factory, the parts that are hardest to repair and hardest to replace, because that means that the damage lasts longer, costs higher.

more.Russia has, however, really, really hit back this week.I mean, some twelve hundred and seventy four missiles and drones fired at targets across Ukraine in the last seven days.And indeed, one of those missiles hit Polish territories.Thoughts have hit Polish territory.I'll come to that in a minute.

There are four big incidents I'm going to look at now.On the 24th of July, 10 people were killed when an arms fair, a meeting of the Ukraine Council for Defence Industries, was hit on the highway to Zhytomyr.

Now, this was an event that had been publicly advertised.A lot of criticism after those strikes that perhaps people were endangered by a lack of sort of operational security around that event.Reports of several explosions, several missiles hitting a facility in a daytime strike.

On the 30th of July, so more recently, six people from a single family of nine were killed in Radushny, that's near Krivirig, President Zelensky's hometown.And Zelensky's come out just moments ago saying that the missile that caused those deaths was in all likelihood a North Korean missile.And that's significant.it potentially shows us two things.The first thing is that Russia, once again, forced to lean on allies for weapons.

It's been using Iranian -made Shahed drones almost since day one of the war.It has fired North Korean KN -23 missiles in the past, but there's been a break.So that could mean two things, either that North Korea has ramped up production and has a surplus it's willing to sell, or perhaps also that Russia is exhausting its own stockpiles and needs to lean more heavily on allies.on Pyongyang.

Now these missiles, the KN23, they're very very similar to the Iskander ground -launched ballistic missiles.These are big weapons, seven and a half meters long, they weigh about three and a half tons, they have a range of some 500 kilometers.

The Iskanders and the KN23s, the ballistic missiles, are also among the hardest for Ukraine to shoot down because of the speed at which they fly.

Also that same night a suspected Russian air -launched cruise missile, suspected KH -101, flew into Polish airspace, exploded 57 miles inside Polish territory.That's NATO territory.

The Polish leader is saying it is almost certainly a Russian weapon.They haven't confirmed it categorically.It hit near the village of Tanowa Kolonia, creating a 33 -foot wide crater.crater.That was likely, we believe, a KH -101.Now that's an air -launched cruise missile so it has a much longer range about 2 ,800 kilometers because it's launched from high up but it does it flies more slowly similarly about seven and a half meters long and it can carry a payload of nearly half a ton about 450 kilograms of explosives.

We've also seen this morning dramatic footage of a vast mushroom cloud billowing over Khmelnitsky in central Ukraine.

Reports that explosions there lasted for over one hour and whilst Ukraine hasn't commented.Understandably on what's been hit the indications are that there are secondary explosions that would suggest Perhaps that this is a successful strike on an ammunition dump or depot of some kind this echoes of very very similar circumstances I remember in 2023 so staggering that it was that long ago three years ago, but a vast mushroom crowd billowing over the same area, these secondary explosions blowing out windows in nearby homes.So Russia may have been targeting what it, you know, the same facility or another facility or a similar facility, I'm speculating there.

And finally, I just want to mention something else that Russia appears to be targeting more frequently, which is Novoposhta.That is Ukraine, one of Ukraine's postal services.There were three killed in a strike on a Novoposhta depot in Sumy.

One person killed in a Novoposhta facility in Poltava and also reports that a facility hit in Izium as well.So just as perhaps we've seen Ukraine targeting Russian logistics with those strikes on wild berries.So Russia is hitting back with strikes on Ukraine's postal services.We've also seen them in the past hitting the railways.And there has been in the last couple of weeks footage of these epicentre stores on fire.Epicentre is sort of vast, large retail chain usually found in the kind of commercial parks on the edges of cities that sells everything sort of DIY store plus plus and everything from clothes to paints to tools to garden furniture.

There have also been this week two car bombs in Odessa on the same day, one in the courtyard of a building, apparently targeting a Ukrainian serviceman, the second targeting an individual believed to work for a minister of interior, but who retired about 12 years ago.What's interesting,

is that this is a reminder of that sort of other type of campaign going on in the background, where it's not just about what's happening in the very, very deep, it's not just about what's happening on the ground.in the trenches but there's these kind of like guerrilla style attempted and sometimes successful assassinations both sides doing them using different techniques.Russia in the past has tended to hire thugs often through things like telegram and we've seen a bit of that modus operandi playing out in other countries as well.In Poland where there have been arson attacks, in this country where there have been arson attacks against a house previously used by the previous Prime Minister, Kirstame.

In other news, in the old war, as I like to call it, there is an F -16 down.A Ukrainian F -16 has crashed.

This was reportedly an in -flight emergency, so that would suggest some kind of technical malfunction.The pilot did manage to eject.This is the fifth F -16 that Ukraine has lost in the last two years.They entered combat service in August 2024.Three allies, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands have between them pledged 57 aircraft, of which about 50 we know have been delivered.Five have crashed.

Three were fatal.Three of the pilots were killed in those crashes.On two occasions, they managed to eject and survived.In that close battle as well, Chazev Yar, the town, the Ukrainian town just west of Bakhmut, has finally fallen to Russian hands.I have to say, when I heard that, I was actually surprised that Ukrainian forces had held on there for so long, because the battle for Bakhmut feels a bit like ancient history, and Chazev Yar, a much smaller settlement on the high ground just to the west of it, where Ukraine has managed tohang on for years.

But Russia is pushing relentlessly forward, slowly but relentlessly.And as they approach, as they take Chazev Yar, that will inevitably become a staging post for attacks further west into Donetsk.They're also fighting hard in Slovyansk, in Dobropillia, which is in that same area.Ukraine fighting back, pushing back in Liman, There were suggestions that were debunked last week that Russian soldiers might be getting encircled.But nonetheless, Ukraine appears to be making some advances there.

On the political front, President Donald Trump appears to have gone wobbly on his promise to let Ukraine manufacture Patriot air defence systems under licence.

This was a pledge that the US president made the last time he met President Zelensky and it was significant because those Patriot air defense systems are the most advanced air defense weapons in Ukraine's arsenal.They are the best at shooting down Russia's fastest and often most devastating missiles, things like the Kinzals, the Zircons and indeed the Iskander -M ballistic missiles and potentially also those KN -23 or 24 North Korean missiles, if indeed that's what North Korea has supplied.It was a promise.It was always going to be intensely technical and difficult to get those licenses.There will be a lot of sensitive American technology in those systems.Trump appears to have rode back.

So that's disappointing for Ukraine.But if we know anything about Trump, it's that he changes his mind regularly and severally.So that may yet happen for Ukraine.

Also in America and on American politics, Lindsey, the late Senator Lindsey Graham sanctions bill has one has moved one step closer through the Senate, where it was approved in a sort of symbolic way.but with almost overwhelming support, 86 votes to 12.Now, this sanctions package, if it goes through, would impose 100 percent secondary tariffs on countries that are buying Russian oil.

The oil, the Russian oil can be sanctioned, but countries, for example, like India and others who buy it, effectively enrich themselves by buying this cheap oil, often processing it and selling it on, would be hit with enormously punitive sanctions.And that might force them to decide to do less business with Russia.And in turn, that would pass the financial pain on to Moscow.

As ever, if you have any questions, please do ask them in the comments below.We love reading them.We get through loads of them.They make us laugh.They make us think.And what I'm saying is also, if you are watching Frontline, if you like Frontline, then please do subscribe to the Sun's channel.

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We do respond to them.Question number one.When will Putin say enough is enough?We get versions of this question a lot but I think it's really important because fundamentally Putin is the person who decides how long this war lasts.He waged this war.It was a war of choice.

He is the only person really at the moment who has the power to stop it immediately if he were to give the order to Russian forces to withdraw.Ukraine is trying to stop it.Ukraine is trying to heap pressure on Putin, heap pressure on Russia's armed forces, heap pressure on its economy and its industry.The scale of Russian suffering and Russian losses over the course of the last four and a half years is staggering.But we haven't seen any indications yet that it is changing Vladimir Putin's calculus yet.is the million dollar question.

I was reminded, though, of a quote from a Hemingway book, The Sun Also Rises, about how one of the characters went bankrupt.And he said, two ways, slowly and then suddenly.And I think that's probably how we'll see Vladimir Putin, his position change.When it does happen, it will likely happen very suddenly.Question number two, is the smoke that we see billowing out of these strikes, the oil refineries, the wild berries plants, is that a crime against the environment?I think it's fair to say, yes, it is.

There is a terrible environmental toll from this conflict.And most obviously, at the moment, from the thick plumes of black smoke we see billowing over Moscow, over oil refineries, indeed today, the mushroom cloud billowing over central Ukraine.Without doubt, there was some research published last year that suggested that Ukraine's carbon emissions had soared about 30 percent since the war began.And that's just inside Ukraine.That wasn't measuring what's happening as Russia burns or indeed the emissions due to Russia's own activity in this war.So just fueling and funding its armed forces.

So yes, it's appalling.It's often heartbreaking to see that, especially when you compare that to where we are with threats like global warming and carbon emissions.But important when you consider that to just go back to why this is happening.This is as a consequence of Russia's invasion.It is a consequence of Russia and of Putin waging that war of choice.Final question, we haven't heard a lot about North Korean troops.

Are they going to rejoin the fight?There are reports Ukraine has warned that some 30 ,000 North Koreans may be deployed to Russia.The suggestion at the moment is those soldiers would stay in Russia, although that could change.It's worth remembering that a couple of years ago 11 ,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed and they did fight Ukraine in occupied Russian Kursk.So this was after Moscow and Pyongyang Kim and Putin signed a a sort of military partnership, and that enabled the North Koreans or provided, I should say, really a fig leaf of cover for the North Koreans to go and fight in Russia against Ukraine.They suffered pretty high casualties.

About 30 % of the soldiers who deployed were reportedly killed, according to an analysis, an open source and satellite analysis by the BBC.So they paid an enormous price.Suggestions that 30 ,000 more troops may be about to deploy unclear if they'll fight.And of course, we've already discussed in this episode the presence of a North Korean missile on the battlefield after many, many months where we haven't seen those weapons in action.

As ever, thank you very much for watching Frontline.If you've got any questions, please do ask them in the comments below.Do like and subscribe and comment.

If you'd like to follow more of my work on defence, then you can reach me at Jerome Starkey on Twitter and Instagram.See you next time.