Evidence points to Ukraine’s use of long-range drones or other loitering munitions as part of a startlingly successful campaign to push the war deeper into Russia. With more than a dozen strikes on refineries as far as 800 miles (1,300km) into enemy territory, this offensive has opened up a new battlespace in Ukraine’s war for national survival.
Coming at a point when Ukraine’s artillery and air defense batteries are running desperately short of ammunition and when its forces have been pushed back by Russian offensives, the strikes speak both of Ukrainian independence of command and admirable technological innovation. Some estimates say Russia has lost 10% of its refining capacity and has had to produce lower-quality vehicle fuel.
That’s not how the attacks are seen in Washington DC. Vice President Kamala Harris and other senior administration officials have told President Zelenskyy that they disapprove and that the strikes may cause still greater retaliation by the Kremlin. This has reportedly caused irritation in Kyiv but has not stopped the campaign.
Ukrainians can reasonably equate the refinery attacks to the triumphant, piece-by-piece annihilation of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which has lost at least a fifth of its strength and is now largely confined to port. With Russia’s blockade lifted, Ukraine has been able to reopen its ports and resume its critically important export trade.
With proper support, the refinery campaign could be a similar strategic success. These drone attacks can help win the war by adding yet another level of disruption to Russian military logistics, add to the drain on the Kremlin’s coffers, and in a world where Russia has evidently overcommitted its strategic focus to the ground war, spur further successes as Russian air defenses are spread thinner and thinner. It is in NATO’s interest to encourage, assist, and properly arm these assaults.
Slicing into Russia’s oil production cuts into the military’s fuel supply. It goes without saying that if Russia aims to capitalize on Ukrainian munition shortages this spring and summer (before $61bn of newly committed US aid arrives), it will need fuel for its armed combat vehicles and supporting aircraft. Lots of it.
Since the first deliveries of medium- and long-range weapons, Ukraine has prioritized disrupting Russian military logistics. The tactical consideration is that Russia must move men and materiel across great stretches of the occupied territories, and in the wetter seasons, only along quality roads and rail lines.
Every time an arms depot is struck or a supply convoy is destroyed, it has knock-on effects. So far, Ukraine has enacted this plan as far out as weapons can reach, including hitting important command and logistic targets in Crimea.
The goal is not just equipment shortages at specific contact points at the frontline, but to make a right awful mess out of the Russian supply chain. Strikes on oil refineries are a continuation of that, as this can cause long-term shortages. Refining crude oil to gasoline or diesel fuel is a relatively short process, taking anywhere from 24 to 168 hours. But repairing it with specialist parts takes much longer.
Consider the March 13 attacks on the Rosneft refinery in the Ryazan region: a plant with a refining capacity of 340,000 barrels per day, according to Andy Lipow of Texas-based Lipow Oil Associates.
That is 5% of Russia’s daily production. Lipow estimates that refineries producing 25% of Russian oil have been targeted, and 50% are within range. UK Defence Intelligence suggests that 10% of Russian oil refining has been affected so far.
The Russian brass is hardly going to confirm the quantity of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel needed to sustain its war of aggression, but removing 10% of production will begin to cut into supply. If Ukraine is armed with better weapon platforms with a longer range and larger payload, and provided with better intelligence, it can do much even better. (John Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on April 22 that longer-range ATACMS missiles would be among the arms shipped.)
Russian military fuel depots won’t be the only target. The late Senator John McCain’s statement that “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country” still holds true, as oil counts for a third of the Russian economy. The country’s defense industry is booming as the state funnels energy revenue directly into the military economy.
Ukrainian strikes on the oil industry can do what sanctions cannot: destroy it. In some ways, this is didactic. Blowing up an oil refinery will always be more efficient than by the use of legal regimes.
But Ukrainian strikes are not just better than the sanctions regime, the one reinforces the other. Many sanctions are aimed at preventing the import of technologies crucial to Russia’s oil industry. While circumvention is prevalent, they push up the costs (imports of sanctioned goods often cost multiples of the true price) and slow the supply chain — it takes longer for sanctioned goods to arrive even if they are available.
The strikes achieve something else too. They demonstrate the paucity of Putin’s would-be totalitarian state. Russia’s lack of domestic security has been laid bare again and again: take the three incursions in Belgorod (May 2023, June 2023, and another raid in March), the Prigozhin mutiny, and to a lesser extent the Crocus theater attack.
Russia’s security apparatus is so consumed with the invasion of Ukraine that it is visibly overstretched. Ukrainian strikes into Russia, both at oil refinery sites and also at drone factories and military bases, aid further successful strikes. Russia has finite air defense systems, and the development of more will draw defense industrial resources away from other military needs.
With a threat range pushing out to around 1,000 miles, the area at risk increases. This vicious cycle of geometry applies very significant pressure on Putin and his military
Most of the criticism of this strategy does not disprove its efficiency. Overwrought concerns about Russian escalation are hard to take seriously after 26 months of all-out war. And remember that Ukraine is currently seeing its energy-generating capacity wrecked — perhaps 60% is now destroyed. Does it really have no right to hit back?
Putin’s calculus for war with NATO will not be swayed one way or another by drone strikes in Russia. For Ukraine, there is little Russia can threaten in terms of escalation, besides the ultimate use of nuclear weapons, and again, the best intelligence available to American political leaders dismisses this.
What Kyiv needs now is greater international support for either drone development or long-range missile supplies, greater actionable intelligence, and most importantly, the proper diplomatic cover from its allies.
This is the sort of campaign that can win a war. If the West is serious about Ukraine emerging victorious, it must enable and amplify these stabs and cuts.
Michael C. DiCianna is a research assistant with the Yorktown Institute. He has worked as a consultant in the US intelligence community for several years, focusing on military affairs in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
