Ukraine’s Refinery Strikes Push Russia’s Fuel Crisis Toward Structural Problem
Alex Horobets
Executive Summary:
Ukraine has transformed what began as isolated strikes against Russian oil refineries into a sustained strategic campaign that has targeted nearly every major refining facility in Russia, triggering an unprecedented fuel crisis.
Russia’s air defense system has proven structurally incapable of protecting oil refineries dispersed across the country’s vast territory. Attempts to shift responsibility for their defense onto private companies, as well as initiatives announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense, are unlikely to resolve the problem in the short term.
Continued strikes and limited domestic fuel reserves could turn the crisis from a series of regional disruptions into a chronic structural problem for the Russian economy, creating political risks for the Kremlin and intensifying pressure on Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and the military establishment.
In recent months, Ukraine has conducted a sustained campaign of long-range drone strikes against Russia’s oil-refining sector (see EDM, June 25, 29). The campaign has targeted virtually every major refining facility, from border-region sites in Krasnodar krai and Rostov oblast to facilities deep inside Russia, including Bashkortostan, Siberia, and the Volga region. Essentially no major fuel producer has remained untouched. The latest strikes underscore the systematic nature of this campaign, including attacks on Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat LLC, one of Russia’s largest refining and petrochemical complexes, which supplied approximately 5 percent of the country’s domestic gasoline and diesel production, as well as repeated attacks on the Afipsky, Ilsky, and Syzran refineries (Current Time TV, May 21; Meduza, July 10, 15).
Ukraine first struck Russian oil refineries in mid-2022. By summer of this year, it has intensified these operations, transforming isolated attacks into a coordinated campaign aimed at undermining Russia’s fuel infrastructure and reducing its ability to export petroleum products (Ukrainska Pravda, June 22). The result has been a fuel crisis unprecedented in scale and geographic reach during the war (Meduza, June 28).
Strikes against refineries in Bashkortostan, Krasnodar krai, Samara oblast, and the Omsk Oil Refinery, the largest in Russia, demonstrated that geographic distance no longer guarantees security (see EDM, July 10). The Omsk Oil Refinery, owned by Gazprom Neft, accounts for roughly one-tenth of Russia’s total refining capacity and had long been considered virtually untouchable. Its shutdown following a July 7 strike, during which key primary refining units were damaged, represented not only an operational setback but also a symbolic milestone (The Moscow Times, July 6; Ukrainska Pravda, July 7). That Ukrainian drones were able to penetrate such distances and successfully strike the facility undermined the Kremlin’s long-standing narrative that Russia’s strategic rear areas remained beyond Ukraine’s reach (see EDM, May 6; Telegram/@telekanalstalingrad, July 7). According to available estimates, as much as 85 percent of Russia’s refining capacity is now within the operational range of Ukrainian strike systems (Telegram/@pyatiletka111, July 12). Ukraine is not only targeting new facilities but also repeatedly striking damaged refineries undergoing repairs, rendering repair efforts largely ineffective in the short term.
The ongoing attacks have triggered a cascading fuel crisis that Russian authorities are no longer able to conceal (see EDM, July 10, 14, 21, 24). Initially confined to border regions and southern Russia, the shortages have rapidly spread into the country’s interior, with long queues reported at filling stations even in Moscow and the surrounding region. Fuel shortages in occupied Crimea have been further aggravated by severe logistical disruptions following damage to the bridges connecting the peninsula with mainland Russia (Meduza, July 16). Regional officials have responded to fuel shortages in a fragmented and uncoordinated manner, with no unified federal strategy (see EDM, July 24). Their measures have ranged from strict fuel rationing to improvised solutions (Interfax, July 10 [1], [2]; RTVI, July 10).
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak publicly acknowledged that fuel supply disruptions were directly linked to the partial shutdown of oil refineries damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes (Meduza, July 10). Novak’s admission may have reflected an attempt by the government’s economic bloc to shift responsibility onto the military, whose inability to prevent the attacks contributed to the crisis. His remarks marked a notable departure from the government’s earlier narrative attributing fuel shortages to “speculators” and “panic buying” (see EDM, July 10). At the federal level, officials continue to downplay the scale of the crisis, and state-controlled media appear to have received informal instructions to minimize public coverage of shortages (Meduza, June 25).
The sustained attacks against Russian oil refineries have also exposed a structural weakness in Russia’s air defense system. The Russian Ministry of Defense lacks both the mechanisms and the resources required to protect important infrastructure spread across the country’s enormous territory. The bulk of Russia’s air defense assets remain concentrated along the front line, around Moscow, and near residences used by the country’s senior leadership. Pantsir-S1 and S-400 systems have been deployed around Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in Valdai (Meduza, April 12).
Under these circumstances, the Kremlin has also sought to shift responsibility for protecting critical infrastructure onto private businesses. President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin has stated that major companies are prepared to finance the purchase of early-warning and drone interception systems to defend their own facilities (URA.RU, July 4). The initiative continues to face bureaucratic and legal obstacles. Under existing regulations, any air defense systems purchased by private companies must be transferred to military units without any guarantee that they will remain assigned to protect the facilities that funded their acquisition (Mediazona, May 28). Russia’s security establishment, including both the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Ministry of Defense, is unlikely to support the emergence of privately controlled armed formations tasked with protecting industrial infrastructure, as such entities could evolve into alternative centers of power.
The Ministry of Defense has sought to demonstrate publicly that it is actively developing solutions to the problem. During a meeting with pro-war military correspondents on June 29, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov announced plans to establish mobile fire groups equipped with interceptor drones, integrate radar stations into a unified detection network, and incorporate artificial intelligence algorithms into Russia’s air defense architecture. These initiatives are unlikely to be implemented before November, meaning the Ministry of Defense is effectively acknowledging that Russian oil refineries will remain vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes for several more months (Lenta.ru, June 29).
Repeated attacks further compound the problem because Russian refineries remain dependent on Western-made equipment. Under the current sanctions regime, repairing damaged facilities is both time-consuming and costly, while replacing Western systems with Chinese alternatives is frequently technically impossible due to incompatibilities in industrial processes and existing equipment. In the short term, the fuel crisis is likely to worsen before any meaningful improvement becomes possible. Existing fuel reserves, estimated at approximately 1.7 million metric tons, would cover only about two months of consumption under the current rate of refining capacity losses (Telegram/@netlenkanet, July 6). Beyond that point, shortages could become chronic unless Russia succeeds in substantially increasing fuel imports or accelerating repairs to damaged refining facilities.
The continuation of Ukraine’s strike campaign poses serious challenges for the Russian leadership over the next three to six months. Politically, the crisis places the government in a difficult position with no obvious solution. While attributing the shortages to Ukrainian attacks allows the Kremlin to deflect some public frustration away from domestic governance failures, it simultaneously raises an unavoidable question about why Russia’s air defense system has failed to prevent these strikes. This criticism is directed personally at Belousov and the Ministry of Defense, creating the potential for further personnel reshuffles within the military leadership.
For Ukraine, the strike effort against Russian oil refineries has proven to be a relatively inexpensive means of inflicting lasting economic and political costs on Russia without undertaking a costly large-scale ground offensive. Russia is unlikely to substantially improve the protection of its strategic rear infrastructure before autumn, based on the Ministry of Defense’s own timetable. Absent such improvement, further strikes against Russia’s remaining operational refining capacity should be expected, with the risk that the current fuel shortages evolve from a collection of regional disruptions into a structural problem affecting the Russian economy.
This article was originally published in Eurasia Daily Monitor.