MOSCOW, July 13 — Against the backdrop of a grinding war, Ukraine has systematically turned its attention to the arteries of Russia’s energy empire, striking refineries and depots in a campaign designed to starve the Kremlin of the cash and fuel that sustain its military machine. The strategy, which intensified after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has seen Ukrainian drones reach deep into Russian territory.
Key strikes include the January 2024 attack on the Tuapse oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai, the March 2024 assault on the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Rostov Oblast, and the January 2024 strike on the Kirishi refinery in Leningrad Oblast. The reported April 28, 2024 strike on an oil depot in Stavropol Krai continues this pattern of calculated disruption.
The economic dimension
What is at stake for Moscow is not merely the inconvenience of damaged infrastructure. Russia is one of the world’s top oil producers, exporting approximately 7-8 million barrels per day in 2023. Energy revenues fund about 30-40% of its federal budget.
Each refinery fire or depot blaze chips away at that fiscal foundation. The wider picture is that Ukraine’s drone strikes aim to degrade Russia’s refining capacity and disrupt domestic fuel supply for military operations.
This is not an abstract economic exercise; it is a tactical effort to impede the logistics that move tanks, trucks and aircraft toward the front lines. The campaign has already forced Russia to import gasoline from Belarus in April 2024 to cover domestic shortfalls. That single fact speaks volumes: a major petro-state, accustomed to being an exporter, reduced to buying fuel from its neighbour.
Strategic calculus
For Kyiv, the logic is straightforward. Hitting Russian energy infrastructure serves two purposes simultaneously. It reduces the revenue Moscow can pour into its war effort, and it creates supply bottlenecks that complicate military logistics.
A refinery offline means less diesel for tanks, less jet fuel for bombers, less gasoline for supply trucks. The strikes also carry a psychological dimension.
They demonstrate that no part of Russia’s energy network is safe, even facilities hundreds of kilometres from Ukrainian borders. The Tuapse refinery sits on the Black Sea coast, the Kirishi refinery near St. Petersburg — locations once considered comfortably beyond reach. Russia’s response has been to bolster air defences around critical energy sites, but the sheer scale of the country’s oil and gas infrastructure makes comprehensive protection a near-impossible task.
The country’s refining capacity is scattered across its vast territory, and drones — cheap, agile, and increasingly sophisticated — have proven difficult to stop entirely.
What to watch next
The coming months will test whether Ukraine can sustain the pace of these strikes and whether Russia can adapt its defences and logistics quickly enough to mitigate the damage. The import of Belarusian gasoline in April 2024 may prove to be a temporary fix or the beginning of a longer-term dependency that reshapes regional energy flows. For European capitals, the question is how this campaign affects global oil markets and whether disruptions to Russian refining will tighten supply at a time when energy prices remain a sensitive political issue.
For Moscow, the imperative is to keep its war machine fuelled — a task made harder with each refinery that burns.
