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CWA # 2160, 26 June 2026
CW Note
The War in Ukraine:

  Radhika M Agarwal
Radhika M Agarwal is a postgraduate student at the Department of Politics and International Relations in Pandit Deendayal Energy University, Gandhinagar.

In the news
On 18 June, a railway bridge in Russian-occupied Crimea was struck in a Ukrainian drone attack, sparking a fire. The bridge crosses the North Crimean Canal near the village of Rozdolne and sits on the Kerch-Dzhankoi railway line, a key supply route for Russian forces in the south.

On 19 June, President Zelensky issued a public ultimatum to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, warning that Minsk had one week to remove communications relay equipment on its territory that Kyiv says was being used to guide Russian drone strikes against Ukrainian civilians. Zelensky identified systems in the Gomel and Brest regions bordering Ukraine. Russia condemned the ultimatum as interference in Belarus's internal affairs, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying Putin and Lukashenko would discuss the matter, and that Russia, as an ally of Belarus, would always stand by the country.

On 20 June, Russian forces launched a missile attack on Poltava, killing two people and injuring 14 others, including six children. Fifteen residential buildings sustained blast damage.

On 21 June, Ukrainian forces struck oil terminals, ferry infrastructure, and air defence systems on both sides of the Kerch Strait, setting at least three ferries ablaze and disabling four S-400 radar stations and two Pantsir systems guarding the Crimean Bridge. Russia's installed governor in Crimea immediately banned all civilian fuel sales on the peninsula. Ferry services across the Kerch crossing were suspended, with heavy truck drivers redirected to the overland route via Rostov-on-Don.

On 22–23 June, Ukraine's Special Operations Forces struck the North Crimean Canal railway bridge at Rozdolne again, collapsing one of the bridge spans, and hit fuel reservoirs at the Kerch Thermal Power Plant, a gas distribution station in Simferopol, and a major electrical substation in western Crimea.

On 24 June, Zelensky confirmed that the Belarusian relay equipment had ceased operating as of June 22, according to Ukrainian military and intelligence reports, though he said it was not yet clear whether the equipment had been physically dismantled. On the same day, Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery, the Lukoil-Nizhegorodorgsintez facility in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and the second-largest producer of gasoline in Russia, went offline after a Ukrainian drone strike.

On 25 June, Russia launched a fresh ballistic missile attack against Kyiv, injuring at least two people and causing a fire in the city's Darnytskyi district.

On 26 June, Russia's Defence Ministry reported that air defence systems shot down 660 Ukrainian UAVs overnight across Russian regions, the Sea of Azov, and the Black Sea, the largest single-night drone attack of the year according to estimates. Drones were intercepted over Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Tula, Ryazan, Moscow, Rostov, and Crimea, among other regions.

Issues at large
1. Russia's aerial campaign and competing narratives on targets
Russia's strike intensity reached approximately 2,200 attack drones, more than 1,800 guided aerial bombs, and 87 missiles, the highest weekly totals since the full-scale invasion began. Russia's Defence Ministry has consistently described its strikes as targeting Ukrainian military-industrial infrastructure, command posts, and air bases. Ukraine says the strikes overwhelmingly hit residential buildings, hospitals, energy infrastructure, and cultural sites. The two accounts are irreconcilable, and independent verification inside active strike zones remains difficult.

2. Ukraine's Crimea isolation campaign and Russia's logistical bind
Crimea has become the primary focus of Ukraine's "middle strike" campaign while using mid-range drones to hit Russian targets at operational depth behind the front, typically between 25 and 200 kilometres from the front lines, targeting energy and logistics infrastructure. The cumulative effect is significant: the Kerch Bridge has been restricted to light vehicles since January 2026, forcing heavy freight onto the ferry route; those ferry terminals were then struck; gas compression stations, power infrastructure, and the Tavriyska Thermal Power Plant were all hit in the following days. Russia has been forced into difficult trade-offs in response: Ukraine's long-range strike campaign forced Russia to redeploy air defence systems to protect Moscow and the Kerch Bridge, weakening coverage across other regions and occupied territories.

3. The Belarus relay station standoff
Zelensky identified four signal relay stations in Belarus's Gomel and Brest regions, which, according to Ukrainian analysis, were enabling Russian drone strikes on Zhytomyr, Rivne and Volyn regions, including attacks on energy infrastructure, railway facilities, and civilian areas. Moscow condemned the ultimatum as aggressive interference in a sovereign state's internal affairs, and Lavrov accused Kyiv of trying to drag Belarus into the conflict, noting that it was in fact Ukraine that launched the war. For Lukashenko, the episode illustrated a familiar bind difficult to satisfy Ukraine's demands without offending Moscow, but equally difficult to avoid escalating a situation that risks Belarus being drawn directly into the conflict. His silence throughout was telling. Beyond the relay stations, Zelensky linked Belarus's wider role to Russia's war economy, noting that Belarusian petrol exports to Russia rose thirteenfold from January to May 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, while diesel exports tripled.

In perspective
The week reflects two parallel and intensifying campaigns. Russia is pushing its aerial bombardment to record volumes, framing strikes as targeting military infrastructure while Ukrainian and international accounts document widespread civilian damage. Ukraine, meanwhile, is prosecuting a sustained effort to isolate Crimea logistically and strike deep into Russian energy infrastructure, a campaign that is visibly straining Russian logistics and forcing air defense redeployments. The Belarus episode sits between these two tracks: a rare instance of public ultimatum that tested, and for now held, the line between Belarusian facilitation and direct participation.

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