Ukraine has conducted another drone strike on an oil facility in Russia, according to reports, as an uptick of attacks on energy facilities threatens Moscow’s war effort and sales of its main export.
Moscow blames Ukraine for hitting Russian fuel depots and oil refineries in strikes that have increased in frequency this year and for which Kyiv often doesn’t claim direct responsibility. Overnight Saturday, a fire broke out at the Slavyansk oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, following a strike directed by the Ukrainian State Security Service (SBU) and Ukrainian special forces, according to Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne.
Local authorities said Russian forces had intercepted drones, but that the devices that fell caused the blaze in what Suspilne said was the 12th successful SBU attack on Russian oil facilities—not to mention the ninth within one week.
Scott Peterson/Getty Images
Oil facilities across a wide area of Russia have been targeted, including in Ryazan and Pervyy Zavod south of Moscow, the Rostov region by the Ukrainian border, Nizhny Novgorod, 300 miles east of the capital, and Kirishi, close to St. Petersburg.
Bloomberg said refineries that stopped operations last week because of the strikes were responsible for 12 percent of Russia’s national oil refining capacity.
“This is a little bit like a chess game that we’re watching,” Thomas O’Donnell, a Berlin-based energy and geopolitical analyst, told Newsweek. “We don’t really know what’s the real tactic or the real aim of either side.”
O’Donnell said that drone attacks to the east of the Donbas region aim to disrupt the ability of Russia to deliver refined products, diesel especially, to the local area. “That’s very important in providing materiel to troops inside Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, strikes on sites further north in Russia adversely impact oil most likely to be exported, “and that kills revenues.”
The pro-Russian Telegram channel Military Observer cited Igor Yushkov, an analyst from Russia’s National Energy Security Fund, about how strikes on oil refineries were more problematic than those on fuel depots.
Attacks on depots only cause “tactical short-term problems” because the fuel is burned, but petroleum products can be easily replaced.
However, strikes on refineries were “more serious” because they were “technologically complex” facilities whose repair is complicated by sanctions, which have restricted the supply of Western oil refining equipment.
Russian media reported that refineries being forced to suspend operations caused the price of AI-95 gasoline on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange to spike by its highest daily level for six months last Wednesday.
O’Donnell said if the strikes continue to hurt Russia’s ability to refine oil, “then they’re going to want to export more crude oil and then they come up against the price cap,” referring to the Western-imposed measure that bans firms from shipping Russian seaborne oil exports sold above $60 a barrel.
“It Russia starts putting more oil on the market, the price will come down and they’ll make less money—but everybody will pay less,” added O’Donnell, a global fellow with the Wilson Center think tank.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.