- July 17, 2026
- 4:04 pm
- World News
The Russian army has been ordered to intensify drone attacks on civilian infrastructure and transport in frontline and border areas of Ukraine.
This was reported by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on July 17, 2026.
This is not about accidental hits, not about ‘collateral damage,’ and not about drones that allegedly lost control.
According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Russian units have been given a specific task: to search for and attack gas stations, trucks, buses, and passenger cars.
That is, ordinary vehicles that people use to go to work, take children, deliver goods, transport the wounded, and try to leave dangerous areas.
Who will carry out the order
One of the main executors of the new order is called the Russian Center for Advanced Unmanned Systems ‘Rubicon’ by the Main Intelligence Directorate.
This structure is engaged in the combat use of drones, training operators, and implementing new methods of aerial hunting for targets. Together with ‘Rubicon,’ drone operators from regular units of the Russian army are supposed to carry out strikes.
For attacks, they plan to use ‘Molniya-1,’ ‘Molniya-2,’ ‘Geran-seeker,’ ‘Gerbera-seeker,’ ‘Lancet,’ V2U, and other drones, which the operator controls in real-time.
This is what makes the threat particularly dangerous.
The operator sees the road, the vehicle, and its direction of movement. After that, he makes a decision to strike.
When such a drone pursues a bus or a passenger car, talks about ‘unintentional hits’ sound less and less convincing.
Roads are turning into a hunting zone
For residents of frontline areas, a car often remains the only way to get to a doctor, receive medicines, bring food, or evacuate.
Buses take people from settlements where shelling continues. Trucks deliver fuel, water, food, and humanitarian aid.
Gas stations remain a crucial part of this system.
A strike on a gas station is not only the destruction of a building or equipment. It is the risk of a large-scale fire, explosion of tanks, death of employees, drivers, and random visitors.
At the same time, such an attack can paralyze movement over an entire area.
Russia is trying to make people afraid to stop at gas stations, go on highways, and use public transport.
Fear in this case becomes as much a weapon as the drone itself.
The Main Intelligence Directorate also reports on the low level of training of some Russian operators.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, servicemen of the 1427th motorized rifle regiment of the Russian army lost orientation and directed a ‘Molniya-2’ drone at a civilian UAZ ‘Bukhanka’ near the settlement of Glushkovo in the Kursk region.
The drone missed the vehicle and exploded approximately ten meters away from it.
In the Zaporizhzhia direction, Russian operators also mistakenly hit a pickup truck carrying Russian military personnel.
The Main Intelligence Directorate warns that some attacks against residents of Russian border regions may be deliberately organized by Russian special services to then blame Ukraine and use the consequences in Kremlin propaganda.
However, regardless of such Russian operations, the new order poses a direct threat specifically to the civilian population of Ukraine.
Strikes on gas stations have already become systematic
The warning from the Main Intelligence Directorate did not appear out of nowhere.
For several months, Russian troops have been consistently attacking Ukrainian fuel infrastructure.
According to market representatives, in just one month, about 100 gas stations of various networks could have been under attack.
Other market participants provided even more severe data.
According to one estimate, in May and June 2026, more than 150 gas station complexes were destroyed or seriously damaged in Ukraine. Some sources estimated the total number of attacked objects by early July at about 200.
The numbers vary because separately counted are completely destroyed stations, damaged objects, repeated strikes, and gas stations whose operations had to be stopped due to the threat of new attacks.
But the scale of what is happening is obvious.
This is no longer a series of separate episodes.
This is a systematic campaign against Ukraine’s civilian fuel infrastructure.
In early July, Russian drones attacked several ‘Ukrnafta’ stations in the Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
In the Mykolaiv region, a drone hit the canopy over the fuel pumps. One person died, two were injured. The fire destroyed cars and equipment, the gas station building was destroyed.
In the Kharkiv region, after an attack by three drones, the station was almost completely destroyed.
Later, the strikes continued.
Columns, canopies, power lines, refrigeration equipment, and service premises were damaged. At some sites, people were saved only because the stations were closed or employees managed to take cover.
In Zaporizhzhia, after a Russian drone strike on a gas station, one person died, and several others were injured.
In Sumy, drones attacked gas stations, severely injuring a city bus driver.
In the Zhytomyr region, after a strike on a gas station, two people were hospitalized, one of the injured was in serious condition.
Each such attack brings closer the moment when gas stations in frontline areas will be forced to close at the slightest threat.
And that means everything will become more difficult: evacuation, delivery of humanitarian aid, ambulance work, supply of stores, and movement of the civilian population.
Russia cannot protect its objects — and takes revenge on peaceful people
The new order appeared against the backdrop of increased Ukrainian long-range strikes on objects supporting Russian aggression.
Ukraine is hitting oil refineries, oil depots, military warehouses, airfields, ports, and military-industrial complex enterprises.
A separate target remains the infrastructure in occupied Crimea, which Russia has turned into a huge military base and logistics center for the war.
Moscow has been unable to fully protect military-industrial complex enterprises, oil facilities, and military logistics over a vast territory.
But instead of acknowledging its own vulnerability, the Kremlin once again shifts the cost of war onto the peaceful residents of Ukraine.
Russia destroys residential buildings in Kyiv, strikes gas stations, hunts for cars, and tries to turn an ordinary road trip into a deadly lottery.
The Main Intelligence Directorate did not explicitly state that the order to intensify attacks on civilian transport is an official ‘response’ to Ukrainian long-range strikes.
However, the sequence of events is hard not to notice.
The more painfully Ukraine hits Russian oil and military infrastructure, the more actively Putin’s army expands terror against cities and the civilian population.
NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency considers it important to speak about this directly.
An attack on a weapons factory and a drone hunt for a civilian car are not the same.
A strike on a military airfield and the destruction of a residential building are not the same.
The defeat of oil infrastructure financing the war and the killing of people at a gas station are not the same.
Russia tries to present its terror as a ‘response.’
In reality, it is an admission of weakness.
The Kremlin cannot guarantee the protection of its own military and oil facilities, so it tries to make Ukraine pay with the lives of peaceful residents.
Graham’s bill could hit Russia’s oil revenues
Almost simultaneously with the warning from the Main Intelligence Directorate, a bill in the United States approached a vote that could seriously limit the revenues Moscow uses to finance the war.
One of its main initiators was Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
On July 10, 2026, Graham and a group of senators announced the agreement of an updated version of the document with the Donald Trump administration.
The next day, July 11, the senator’s office reported his death after a sudden and brief illness.
After Graham’s death, representatives of both parties continued work on the bill.
The initial version provided for the possibility of imposing duties of up to 500% against states that continue to buy Russian energy resources.
In the updated version, the maximum rate was reduced to 100%.
However, the document does not mean the automatic imposition of 100-percent duties against all states buying Russian oil and gas.
It gives the US president the right to impose duties of up to 100% on goods from countries that are among the largest buyers of Russian energy resources.
Restrictions may apply to states that continue to provide Russia with multibillion-dollar revenues and thereby help finance the production of missiles, drones, and weapons.
The bill also provides for measures against Russian energy infrastructure, financial intermediaries, and the so-called shadow fleet.
This refers to old tankers that Russia uses to circumvent sanctions, conceal the origin of oil, and continue exports.
Support exists, but the law has not yet been passed
As of July 16, 2026, the updated initiative was supported by at least 61 senators — 39 Republicans and 22 Democrats.
Theoretically, this number of votes is enough to overcome a possible filibuster and pass the bill through the Senate.
But the vote still needs to take place.
After the Senate, the document will require approval by the House of Representatives and then the signature of the US president.
Therefore, it is too early to talk about the introduction of new sanctions as a fait accompli.
However, the bipartisan support itself shows that there is growing understanding in Washington of a simple thing: it is impossible to stop the Russian war without reducing the revenues on which it relies.
Another harsh winter ahead
Russia is already preparing the ground for new attacks on Ukrainian energy, fuel infrastructure, and transport.
Strikes on gas stations should make movement difficult.
Attacks on trucks — disrupt supply.
Hunting for buses and passenger cars — intimidate people and complicate evacuation.
Another extremely difficult winter lies ahead for Ukraine.
It is impossible to stop Russian terror with another statement of ‘deep concern.’
Ukraine needs additional air defense systems, means to combat drones, long-range weapons, and sanctions that will actually reduce Moscow’s oil and gas revenues.
Every state that continues to buy Russian oil must understand what it is financing.
This money turns not only into missiles for strikes on Ukrainian cities.
They turn into drones, whose operators are ordered to search for gas stations, buses, and civilian cars on the roads.