Vladimir Putin has been warned he is heading for a humiliating “military defeat” in the war as Ukraine today inflicted new agony with a devastating strike on an oil refinery and export terminal on the Black Sea.
The attack led to a major evacuation amid thick, toxic smoke as the Tuapse oil refinery and port went up in flames for the third time in 12 days.
The strike spells ruin for Russia’s summer playground beaches – and could threaten Putin’s secret £1 billion palace at Gelendzhik.
The earlier attacks had already seen the coastline dubbed his Costa-del-Hell with giant oil slicks, polluted beaches, and “oil rain” from the burning fuel.
The new Ukrainian strikes came as Putin was strongly attacked by his former “defence minister” in occupied Donetsk region, Igor Strelkov, an ex-FSB officer who was crucial to his invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014.
Commenting from inside a Russian jail after being sentenced for earlier criticism of Putin, he said the dictator’s war “has quite clearly reached a dead end” and was now “costing an enormous number of lives without any result.”
Strelkov mocked Russia’s “brilliant leaders and commanders who over four years have missed absolutely every opportunity to achieve victory”.
Russian was now “desperate” and “unfortunately we are heading towards a military defeat”.
Hardliner Strelkov – real name Igor Girkin – said it was too late for mass mobilisation because Russia is too weak.
“You can mobilise as many people to the front as you like — they will not be able to turn the course of the war. That moment has passed….
“It is pointless. Our economy does not even have enough weapons to arm them.”
The Strelkov onslaught was the latest in a rare spate of criticism of Putin from former Kremlin insiders, pro-war bloggers and glamorous influencers.
Reporter Anastasia Troyanova said of the latest Tuapse strike: “The night was terrifying.
“There are now huge black columns of smoke over the city.
“At the same time, people are mostly walking without respirators or in simple medical masks.
“They say that they’ve smelled it and don’t feel the smell: this is very dangerous, because you can get poisoned this way.”
Reports say the oil which flooded into the sea is moving towards Russia’s main summer resort Sochi as well as Gelendzhik, close to Putin’s clifftop palace compared with the lair of a James Bond villain.
