{"id":53325,"date":"2026-05-02T01:55:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T01:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/53325\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T01:55:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T01:55:15","slug":"russias-oil-refinery-capacity-just-hit-a-16-year-low-ukraine-did-that-with-drone-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/53325\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia’s Oil Refinery Capacity Just Hit a 16-Year Low. Ukraine Did That with Drone Strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the morning of 1 May, residents of the municipality of Tuapse had a distinctly unpleasant beginning to the traditional May Day holiday. Ukrainian forces launched yet another attack on the local oil refinery in this southern Russian region of Krasnodar Krai \u2013 a facility where fires have been blazing for days amid a series of devastating previous strikes<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

This is now the fourth drone attack against the facility in the past two weeks. Ukraine previously confirmed strikes on Tuapse on\u00a016<\/a>,\u00a020<\/a>, and\u00a028 April<\/a>. Following the third attack, a state of emergency was declared in the municipal district.\n<\/p>\n

On 29 April, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry (MChS) claimed it had finally extinguished the fires in Tuapse caused by these successive Ukrainian attacks. But this latest barrage has reignited the blazes at the oil-production facility, with residents reporting that explosions are once again occurring in the city.<\/p>\n

News about the fourth strike on Tuapse is still emerging on the internet and becoming known to the Russian public, despite state-controlled media outlets either blocking it or simply refusing to acknowledge it. Photos and videos showing the damage to the refinery and the co-located marine terminal were posted<\/a>\u00a0on social media accounts in the early morning hours of 1 May.\n<\/p>\n

Additional coverage has continued throughout the day on the Telegram monitoring channel Exilenova-Plus<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not difficult to understand why the Russian government keeps seeking to find more effective ways to shut down the Telegram platform for the Russian population,\u201d said a colleague in Moscow. \u201cNot only does it permit people to communicate in ways that the state does not approve of, but through Telegram is also possible to reveal all the news about the war in Ukraine that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not want the public to see or hear.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\"Putin\"<\/p>\n

Russian nuclear weapons. Image Credit: Russian State Media.<\/p>\n

Microcosm of a Military Campaign<\/p>\n

Retired intelligence officials that 19FortyFive spoke to explained, \u201cyou can see in these attacks on this refinery and marine terminal complex a blueprint for how Ukraine intends to take this war to every corner of Russia, to every strategically important site, to every installation or base that is critical to Moscow\u2019s war effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

This one night after another set of strikes on the Tuapse site is not just putting this one piece of Russia\u2019s oil industry out of commission, explained one former analyst who had spent decades following how the then-Soviet Union \u2013 and now Russia \u2013 uses its energy industry to support its military and the economy as a whole. \u201cThis has all the hallmarks of a sustained campaign to force Russia\u2019s war machine to a breaking point\u201d, he said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effects of four successful assaults on an important refinery complex have to be political as well as economic,\u201d he continued. \u201cMoscow\u2019s attempts to hide what is going on from the public are feckless at best. Everyone in Russia knows what is happening in Tuapse, and they can see that the Putin regime cannot or will not protect them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In conversations with Ukrainian defense industry executives from Kyiv, they reveal that there is a plan, and what you are seeing in these past two weeks is the template, the first example of what this campaign is designed to do. \u201cThis is not going to be a series of one-off hits to try and disrupt some level of production at a refinery and then move, and we go cause a bit of mischief somewhere else, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a campaign that is about shutting down Russia\u2019s ability to supply its own military with petroleum products, as well as cutting off Moscow\u2019s state revenue stream. This is about starving Vladimir Putin of everything that he needs to continue this war.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\"Putin\"<\/p>\n

Russian President Putin is addressing the nation.<\/p>\n

\"Putin\"<\/p>\n

Russian President Putin.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut equally important is the symbolism attached to these attacks,\u201d said an executive from one of the Ukrainian drone companies. \u201cBy hitting Tuapse night after night and then suddenly out of nowhere hitting the city of Perm<\/a> \u2013 950 miles or more from the border of Ukraine behind Russian lines and 1600 miles from Tuapse.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you are saying to the Russians is, \u2018we can hit any target in Russia any night of the week. We can come back night after night and do the same in the same place \u2013 and then pivot and hit some other target 2500 km away. And \u2013 this is the important point \u2013 you are saying \u2018Vladimir \u2013 there is nothing you can do to stop us. Nothing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Affecting the Situation on the Ground<\/p>\n

The war on Russia\u2019s oil industry has an impact beyond just petrol supplies and the Russian state budget. There are now beginning to be significant changes on the ground as well due to the Ukrainian drone campaign.\n<\/p>\n

In November 2023, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, then serving as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, described how the war had become<\/a> a positional form of warfare. The saturation of the front lines with unmanned systems had made maneuvering with forces of any meaningful size impossible.<\/p>\n

Russia had continued to mobilize more manpower. In a war of attrition, fortune would favor the nation that has a larger population to draw upon \u2013 a traditional Russian strength. Even with Ukraine\u2019s ability to inflict serious casualties using its growing army of drones, those casualties have not had a significant impact on Moscow\u2019s ability to prosecute the war.\n<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s drone campaign is changing all of that. It is designed along the lines of the Allied strategic bombing campaign of WWII.\n<\/p>\n

Long-range strikes<\/a> of the type Ukraine<\/a> has carried out in the past two weeks are deliberately targeted at Moscow\u2019s capacity to wage war. Curtailing petroleum production has a direct or indirect impact on almost everything Russia needs to keep operating \u2013 particularly in logistics.\n<\/p>\n

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Ukraine\u2019s strikes on Russian oil infrastructure\u00a0reached<\/a>\u00a0a four-month high in April. This included at least 21 attacks on refineries, pipelines, and offshore oil assets. These attacks have reduced Russia\u2019s average refinery capacity to 4.69 million barrels per day, the lowest level since December 2009, Bloomberg also reported.\n<\/p>\n

\"Ukraine\"<\/p>\n

Ukrainian Army Tank Firing. Image Credit: Creative Commons.<\/p>\n

In 2024,\u00a0oil and gas revenues<\/a>\u00a0accounted for 30 percent of Russia\u2019s tax and export income, or $120.3 billion. Roughly 85 percent of that revenue came from oil, primarily crude oil sales, and the rest from natural gas. Even with Western sanctions, oil revenue remains significant to the Russian state.<\/p>\n

But beginning in the summer of 2025, Ukraine intensified its long-range strike campaign,<\/a> carrying out 43 strikes from 1 July to 7 September. These targets included oil refineries, transportation infrastructure, and military-industrial complexes.\n<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u00a0struck Russian oil-industrial infrastructure<\/a> more than 140 times in 2025, an increase of over 50 percent from 2024. In November, Ukraine began attacking not just refineries but ships and other transportation nodes, storage bunkers, and port facilities.\n<\/p>\n

Impact on Military Operations<\/p>\n

It is difficult to precisely quantify the direct effects of these long-range strikes. But when combined with the economic sanctions and other international efforts to reduce Russia\u2019s ability to prosecute the war, evidence to date is that they are having the desired effect.\n<\/p>\n

Recent reports on the impact of the oil war in Russia indicate that Moscow is increasingly unable to pay soldiers<\/a>.\u00a0There is also evidence that the campaign has successfully disrupted funding for war production<\/a> and created\u00a0even higher domestic fuel shortages<\/a>\u00a0by the fall of 2025.\n<\/p>\n

Moscow has also been\u00a0forced to reallocate<\/a>\u00a0some of its air defense assets as a means to battle against increased drone attacks. Reports also indicate the Russian government is contemplating alternative ways to raise revenue to fund the war, which\u00a0include the highly unpopular option of increased taxation<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

It is hard to measure the overall effects on the Russian economy. But there are multiple signs that raising revenue is an increasing struggle for Moscow. And given how adversely their war on major oil industrial sites is affecting Russia\u2019s war effort, Ukraine is likely to pick more targets like Tuapse. Just like with that city, when the Ukrainians attack, they continue until the facility targeted is degraded beyond the level of short-term repair and reconstitution, even remote possibilities.\n<\/p>\n

But the same Russian drone industry executives \u2013 as well as European military specialists that NSJ has spoken with recently \u2013 state that there are also intangibles at work in this campaign.\n<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s online community is increasingly hostile and critical of the Putin regime. Some of the Kremlin\u2019s most ardent propagandists appear to be hedging their bets and becoming more circumspect in their public statements.\n<\/p>\n

\"Image:<\/p>\n

Image: Russian Federation Government.<\/p>\n

The assessment of observers, both inside and outside of Russia, is that more than infrastructure, revenue streams, and industrial capacity are being destroyed by the Ukraine drone campaign. The population is increasingly dissatisfied with the war\u2019s progress \u2013 or lack thereof.\n<\/p>\n

However, the conflict remains as what has been described as a \u201chigh fatigue, low dissent dynamic.\u201d While 73 percent of the population feels \u201cfatigue\u201d, there is still some level of popular support for the \u201cspecial military operation\u201d that remains relatively stable.\n<\/p>\n

A plurality of about 40 percent still support Putin<\/a> at this point, but there is growing negative sentiment. \u00a0A late-2024 poll showed that 47 percent of Russians were already of the mind that the war had now brought \u201cmore harm than benefit\u201d to them, a significant increase in negative sentiment compared to previous years.\n<\/p>\n

The most recent commentaries and the barrage of negative coverage of these strikes on Tuapse, Perm, and other sites \u2013 not to mention Moscow\u2019s attempts to cover up the entire set of circumstances \u2013 are having damaging effects all their own.\n<\/p>\n

There are good reasons to believe that the Ukrainian campaign is working. Meanwhile, the prospects for Russia, the ability to continue the war, and the overall future for the Kremlin leadership<\/a> only go downhill from here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson<\/p>\n

Reuben F. Johnson<\/a>\u00a0has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the\u00a0Casimir Pulaski Foundation<\/a>. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two consecutive awards for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree from DePauw University and a master\u2019s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the morning of 1 May, residents of the municipality of Tuapse had a distinctly unpleasant beginning to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[399,1615,1777,1332,2061,334,329,330,328,347],"class_list":{"0":"post-53325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vladimir-putin","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-drones","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-military","12":"tag-oil","13":"tag-putin","14":"tag-russia","15":"tag-ukraine","16":"tag-vladimir-putin","17":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116502496793665772","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}