Ukraine delivered a birthday present to President Putin this morning — blowing up the largest oil refinery and depot in Crimea. Mr. Putin’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula is the signature achievement of his near 25-year-long rule, a message to his people and to the world that Russia is back as a superpower. 

On October 8, 2022, one day after the Russian ruler’s 70th birthday, Ukraine’s Security Service set off a truck bomb on the $4 billion road and rail bridge that Mr. Putin commissioned to unite continental Russia with occupied Crimea. Today, drivers on the central arch of the damaged bridge could see two towering columns of black and gray smoke rising from the burning oil tank farm in Feodosia, 50 miles to the west.