Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SSO) reported conducting a joint sabotage operation with a Russian underground resistance movement against an oil pumping station in Yaroslavl Oblast that feeds crude toward Russia's Baltic export terminal, SSO announced on 14 June. The military called it the second coordinated action with the partisan group in one week. Euromaidan Press cannot independently verify the reported damage.

SSO and Black Spark report joint operation on Palkino station

SSO said it conducted "special actions" on the Palkino oil pumping station in Myshkinsky district, Yaroslavl Oblast, in coordination with the Russian underground resistance movement Chornaya Iskra (Black Spark). The Special Operations Forces reported that operators struck "key elements of the enemy's oil transport infrastructure."

Russian underground movement Chernaya Iskra confirmed its participation and called the station "a very important facility." 

"With exports, of course, they'll have to wait. Here in Russia itself, the Hunger Games for gasoline are starting — what exports?" the group wrote.

SSO said this was the second joint operation with the partisan movement this week. On 12 June, SOF and Chernaya Iskra struck the TANECO refinery in Tatarstan, SOF stated. That strike was previously reported by Euromaidan Press as part of a broader overnight raid confirmed by Ukraine's General Staff.

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Striking oil transport infrastructure reduces Russia's capacity to export energy resources and cuts the revenues funding the war against Ukraine, SOF stated.

Euromaidan Press cannot independently verify the report or confirm damage at the Palkino site at this time. NASA's FIRMS thermal monitoring system shows fires continuing at the Rybinsk Rosrezerv oil depot in the same Yaroslavl Oblast after the overnight drone strike on 14 June, but registers no fires in the area of Myshkino over the past month, where Palkino is located. This may mean that any damage caused didn't trigger large fires.

Ukrainian Special Operations Forces drone operators have established aerial control over part of the Russian land supply route from occupied Melitopol to Chonhar. The path is the entry point to Crimea, and they are destroying Russian equipment and disrupting Russian military logistics on the road, the 3rd Separate Special Purpose Regiment announces.

Russian forces on the peninsula already depend on a constrained set of supply lines: the Kerch Bridge (under sustained Ukrainian threat since 2022), the rail and road corridor through occupied Donetsk Oblast, and the Melitopol-Chonhar bottleneck. Ukrainian aerial denial of any one of these links compounds pressure on the others. 

Squeezing land corridor from both ends

The new operation puts pressure on the land corridor's western end. On 31 May, Mariupol residents reported in local group chats that Russia shut down part of its land corridor from Crimea to occupied Donetsk because of Ukrainian drones.

The Melitopol-Chonhar segment crosses flat steppe with limited cover and funnels Russian convoys through narrow bridge crossings over the Syvash to reach the peninsula, the terrain optimal for drone operators to deny the air with persistent surveillance and strike capability. 

SSO drones as the strangulation instrument

The 3rd Separate Special Purpose Regiment is one of Ukraine's veteran Special Operations Forces units, named after the tenth-century Kyivan Rus prince.

The regiment's deployment of drone operators against Russian logistics on the Melitopol-Chonhar route fits within Ukraine's broader "logistics lockdown" approach to occupied territory. Ukraine's Defense Ministry has recently committed $113 million to medium-strike drones designed to target Russian rear logistics.

"Drones of the Special Operations Forces unit are destroying equipment and breaking the enemy's logistics routes on the Melitopol-Chonhar route," the 3rd Regiment said.

What does this change for Russia on peninsula? 

Russia's military presence in Crimea depends on a continuous supply of fuel, ammunition, and food, as well as on personnel rotation. 

"As a result, the already-difficult logistics for supplying the Russian army and fuel to the peninsula have grown harder," the SSO said.