Today Ukraine celebrates its 33rd Independence Day. The fireworks — massive aerial assaults on Russia this week that made previous drone attacks look like firecrackers — came early. President Zelensky gained a temporary insurance umbrella by hosting at Kyiv yesterday Prime Minister Modi of India. Ukrainians calculate that President Putin would not bomb Kyiv while the biggest buyer of Russian oil is in town.

The week began and ended with drone attacks on a 74-tank oil depot in Rostov region, the southern logistical center for Russia’s war machine. Visible for miles around, the giant inferno in Proletarsk provided the press with images of oily orange flames billowing high over the steppe. By Monday, the second day, 41 firefighters had been injured. On Wednesday, two Russian Orthodox priests arrived with an icon of the Unburnt Bush and blessed the fire trucks and 500 firefighters.

“This is how, step by step, the war enters the enemy’s territory,”  the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereschuck, posted on Telegram. A former government adviser, Anton Gerashchenko, wrote on X: “If the fire gets to the kerosene tanks, it will make the situation even worse.” Encouraged by the blaze, Ukraine sent a second wave of drones Thursday night. This attack spread the fire to the industrial tanks of kerosene and to a residential neighborhood.

In a second Hollywood-style attack, a Ukrainian-made Neptune cruise missile flew hundreds of miles across enemy lines Thursday to hit a railroad ferry loaded with 30 tanker cars filled with diesel. The blaze roared out of control and sank the ferry, the Conro Trader. The port of Kavkaz, a lifeline for Russia to supply occupied Crimea, is closed for repairs.

Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmitry Pletenchuk told Radio Free Europe: “This ferry is one of the vital links of Russian military logistics that supplies the occupying forces. First of all, [it carried] fuel and lubricants, but in addition, of course, it also transported weapons.”

In a third demonstration of Ukraine’s cutting-edge drone technology, a drone swarm penetrated Russian air defenses before dawn Thursday, flew 300 miles east, and then hit Marinovka air base. Situated near Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, this base is a major launching pad for air attacks on Ukrainian cities and military targets.

Local authorities announced that 11 Ukrainian drones were shot down. As is customary, they did not report on the drones that got through. Once the fireballs and black smoke columns cleared, satellite photos showed that six Sukhoi fighter bombers were damaged or destroyed. Collectively, $100,000 worth of drones cost Russia some $200 million.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s surprise land invasion of Russia’s Kursk region continues to surprise. Confounding reports that Ukraine is running out of steam, a Russian official in Kursk yesterday ordered the evacuation of Rylsk. With a population of 15,000, this is the largest Russian city to be evacuated since the Ukrainians crossed the border August 6.  This weekend, at Kursk city, capital of the region, officials are installing concrete bomb shelters at bus stops. 

Ukraine’s Army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi says his soldiers control 94 Russian settlements and almost 500 square miles. Although only 4 percent of the region’s land, that’s the equivalent of Ukrainian territory that the Russian Army has conquered — at great cost — since the start of this year.

Yesterday, fighting intensified in a pocket where Russian soldiers are trapped between the Seym River and the Ukrainian border. After blowing up three key bridges over the river, Ukraine’s Air Force has repeatedly hit Russian Army’s pontoon replacement bridges.

“The border defenses [that President Putin] claimed were being built these past two years proved inadequate, where they existed at all,” a British historian of Russia’s military, Mark Galeotti, wrote for the London Sunday Times. “Contracts for ‘dragon’s teeth’ anti-tank defenses and similar obstacles were awarded to his cronies, and the money often ended up just being embezzled.”

In what looks like a diversion, a 20-man Ukrainian unit with wheeled armored vehicles attacked Russian positions last week in a second Russian region, Bryansk. The site of the attack, Zabrama, is only 25 miles east of Belarus, the Russian satellite nation.

Russia’s military response to Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk has been hampered by lack of coordination among five Russian military forces. Morale is low. New videos appear daily of Russian soldiers surrendering. Russia’s Air Force has taken the lead in attacking the invaders. 

Mr. Putin, in a public video on Thursday, tried to shift  blame to military heads. Talking virtually to the governors of  three regions hit by cross border raids — Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk — he stressed that “security issues” in Kursk “are problems that are the responsibility of the security agencies.”

Yesterday, Russia’s Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, told TASS news agency: “I tell you sincerely that the president has made a decision. I am firmly convinced that everyone will be severely punished for what has happened in Kursk region.”

From the other side, Mr. Zelensky on Thursday visited Sumy, Ukraine’s region bordering Kursk, for the first time since Ukrainian troops moved into Russia. After his visit, he said that to force Russian troops out of Ukrainian territory, Ukraine’s soldiers should “create as many problems as possible” on Russian territory.

While he spoke, Russian troops were inching forward in southern Ukraine in an extremely costly offensive. By Ukraine’s count, Russia has suffered 243,000 casualties — killed or severely wounded — since the start of this year. For this death toll, largely in Ukraine’s southeastern Donbass region, Russian soldiers now are six miles from Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian road and rail hub.

Since last spring, the Russian offensive has moved front lines about seven miles from Bakhmut, a city it gained 14 months ago at the price of 40,000 lives. “With his army fully committed and advancing at great cost in eastern Ukraine, Putin has no significant reserves to call upon and is deeply reluctant to withdraw his best units in order to protect Kursk Oblast,” the editor of the Atlantic Council UkraineAlert, Peter Dickinson, wrote Thursday.

“Instead, he is attempting to plug the gap with a ragtag collection of conscripts scraped together from across the Russian Federation,” Mr. Dickinson added. “Faced with a choice between conquering Ukraine or defending Russia, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Putin cannot do both.”