Russia took almost 3,000 metric tons of gasoline from Belarus in the first half of March 2024. In January it had taken none. Reuters, citing industry and trade sources, reported the jump on March 27, 2024, and the cause was plain: Ukrainian drones had been hitting Russian refineries since the start of the year.
A country that normally sells fuel abroad suddenly needed to buy it. Moscow banned gasoline exports from March 1 to keep supplies at home, the same tool it had used from August to October the year before, when shortages pushed prices up. Belarus had shipped 590 tons in February.
What the strikes cost
Weekly gasoline output fell 14.3% year-over-year, Reuters said. Rosneft’s Kuibyshev refinery lost half its capacity after one attack.
Getting more fuel from Belarus was not simple. Belarus prefers to sell to international buyers, so the talks between the two governments and the oil companies were hard. Its two refineries, Naftan in Novopolotsk and Mozyr, are each rated at 12-million-ton annual capacity but usually run nearer 9 million tons a year, and technical limits may cap what they can add. One option under discussion was to send Belarus more crude in exchange for products. How much Russia would need, sources said, depended on when its own plants finished repairs.
A limited dent, for now
Carnegie Endowment analysis from April 5, 2024 weighed how serious the campaign really was. Ukraine had been attacking refineries and other infrastructure since January 2024, and the author argued that if March’s pace held and Russian air defenses did not improve, Ukraine “will be able to keep damaging Russian refineries faster than they can be fixed, slowly but steadily eroding the country’s refining capacity.”
The financial damage to oil companies was real, the piece said, but the wider economic effect stayed limited. About 40 percent of Russian refining sits beyond drone reach because of geography, and even if every reachable plant were knocked out, facilities in Siberia and the Urals could cover Russia’s diesel and fuel oil needs. The cost balance favored Kyiv: drones are far cheaper than the repairs they force.
Distance cuts both ways. Russia’s size protects its refineries, but it also means fuel must travel long routes over overstretched railroads. Carnegie also noted a change in Ukrainian method. Kyiv had moved away from Western munitions that came with limits on Russian targets and toward long-range drones of its own, which let it strike deeper despite U.S. warnings to stop. Both sides, the author wrote, were increasingly going after economic infrastructure rather than strictly military targets.
Sources
- Exclusive-Russia increases gasoline imports from Belarus as domestic supplies shrink
- How Serious Are Ukrainian Drone Attacks for Russia?
