Wasn’t Russia the energy superpower that was going to be able to keep its pumps running no matter what? That reputation is falling apart under the constant pressure of Ukraine’s long-distance precision attacks on its oil refining industry, a campaign that has taken out almost 40 percent of Moscow’s processing ability and is pushing the Kremlin into the uncomfortable position of importing fuel.
Since August, Ukraine has targeted at least 16 of Russia’s 38 refineries, employing increasingly sophisticated tactics. Strikes often arrive in multiple waves of drones, designed to overwhelm air defenses and delay firefighting. Some facilities deep inside Russian territory, such as the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat plant in Bashkortostan over 1,100 kilometers from the border have been hit. Others, such as the Moscow-based Ryazan refinery that can produce 340,000 barrels per day, have been attacked five times in 2025. Energy analyst Thomas O’Donnell said, “Ukraine is now producing and successfully launching drones at oil facilities faster than Russia’s ability to repair them.”
The drones themselves are a key component of this tale. Ukrainian troops have sent out hundreds-of-miles-range models carrying warheads aimed at burning refinery furnaces or storage tanks. A furnace strike will put a plant out of commission for months, and sanctions have slowed to a near-halt the ability to find replacement parts. Some refineries have turned to overhead netting on exposed structures, a makeshift defense system recalling the cage armor mounted on tanks.
The financial blow is rippling through Russia’s fuel network. Wholesale petrol prices are up 40 percent since January, and retail prices increase daily in some areas. Occupied Crimea has reduced ration limits to 20 liters per person from 30, and independent parts of Siberia have been forced to close entirely. Long lines sometimes a mile long are seen on highways between city centers. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has conceded that “overall, the balance for both September and October is a difficult one.”
In order to fill the gap, Moscow is resorting to Chinese, South Korean, Singaporean, and Belarusian imports. Import tariffs on gasoline coming in via Far Eastern checkpoints have been cancelled, and federal budget subsidies will make up the difference between world market prices and Russia’s lower domestic prices. State oil companies like Rosneft and NNK will relocate 150,000 tons monthly from Siberian refineries to central Russia. Belarusian supplies are accompanied by another contentious action: ending the prohibition of monomethylaniline, an octane enhancer prohibited in Russia since 2016 on health concerns related to its toxicity and cancer-causing properties.
Though such imports can alleviate shortages, they cannot make up for lost export revenues. Diesel deliveries have dropped to multi-year lows, jeopardizing a major source of war financing. Prior to the strikes, Russia’s diesel exports were one of its most lucrative, and their reduction directly tightens the Kremlin’s finances. Bloomberg statistics reveal crude oil exports lower-margin products than refined ones have hit record levels, highlighting the change in Russia’s trade balance.
From the engineering perspective, the reconstruction of damage from large-scale refinery attacks is a daunting task. Plants are intricate networks of distillation columns, catalytic crackers, and high-pressure pipelines. Restoration involves not only physical replacement but control system recalibration, much with parts imported from overseas. With sanctions limiting imports of specialized equipment, repair schedules extend to months, keeping plants out of commission and capacity lost permanently.
Ukraine’s strategy is weighted to take advantage of these weaknesses. By targeting refineries during peak demand periods summer vacations and harvest season Kyiv has maximized the domestic effect. The campaign simultaneously targets civilian supply nodes as well as facilities associated with military logistics, including those at Samara and Saratov, cutting off fuel supplies to front-line troops. President Volodymyr Zelensky has cast the strikes as economic warfare: “The most effective sanctions – the ones that work the fastest – are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots.”
For Russia, the optics are poisonous. A country that once boasted energy self-sufficiency is now importing gasoline, relaxing chemical safety regulations, and fuel rationing in several parts of the country. The longer repair crews labor to rebuild capacity, the more durable these measures will be. And with Ukraine pushing Western allies to impose stricter energy sanctions possibly on crude exports the squeeze on Moscow’s war economy is about to get tighter.
