{"id":977610,"date":"2026-05-22T10:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T10:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/977610\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T10:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T10:56:20","slug":"ukrainian-drone-commander-attacking-russian-oil-refineries-has-been-surprisingly-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/977610\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian Drone Commander: Attacking Russian Oil Refineries Has Been Surprisingly Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To do that, Ukrainian drones would need to cover at least 3,000 kilometers. The Ukrainians have not yet carried out strikes at such a distance, but Ukrainian drones have already attacked the Kola Peninsula and the Murmansk area.<\/p>\n<p><strong>All-Out Hunt for Russian Air-Defense Systems<\/strong><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure__image\" onclick=\"triggerEvent('articleImageClick', { id: 17654021, focus: 'single-image', focusIndex: '17654021' })\" onkeydown=\"if (event.key === 'Enter') {&#10;        triggerEvent('articleImageClick', { id: 17654021, focus: 'single-image', focusIndex: '17654021' })&#10;        }\" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" data-focus-from=\"single-image\" data-focus-index=\"17654021\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/17654021t1hc43b.jpg\"  onload=\"this.parentElement.classList.remove('figure__image-loading')\" alt=\"In 2021, Russia was able to show off its Pantsir-S1 systems at the May 9 parade in Moscow.\"\/>In 2021, Russia was able to show off its Pantsir-S1 systems at the May 9 parade in Moscow. Photo: AP Photo\/Scanpix<\/p>\n<p>The effectiveness of Ukrainian long-range drone attacks has risen noticeably recently thanks to Ukraine\u2019s systematic hunt for Russian army air-defense systems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are destroying more and more of their air defenses. I think that in July we will already destroy twice as many as in March,\u201d said Yevhen Karas, commander of Ukraine\u2019s 413th Drone Regiment. \u201cThat means Russia can no longer maintain its air defenses at the same level. Their air defense is becoming like a wooden picket fence, with big gaps in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In some sectors, Karas claimed, Russia\u2019s air defense has degraded so badly that they are already afraid to bring in new systems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe may have a \u2018window open\u2019 there for several months before they come up with something,\u201d Karas said. \u201cThese are real open gates into Russia\u2019s defenses for us. For us, it is an aerial highway into Russia. Russian generals are afraid to admit it because they fear for their positions. If they somehow close it, we will open a new window.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Oryx, an organization that gathers information from open sources, Ukraine has destroyed 314 Russian army surface-to-air missile systems, and more than a hundred additional systems have been seriously damaged. According to Ukraine\u2019s General Staff, even more such systems have been destroyed.<\/p>\n<p>To protect oil and military plants, and also against Ukrainian long-range drones, Russia mainly uses Pantsir and Tor systems. According to Oryx, Ukraine has definitely damaged or destroyed at least 45 Pantsirs and 85 Tors in various versions. Most of these hits have occurred over the past year.<\/p>\n<p>Experts estimate that a Pantsir system costs $10\u201315 million, and a Tor system $20\u201325 million.<\/p>\n<p>According to Karas, before its full-scale assault on Ukraine four years ago, Russia had about 140 Pantsir systems and roughly the same number of Tor systems. Based on those figures, Ukraine has already destroyed at least 40 percent of these air-defense systems used against long-range drones.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine is destroying the systems faster than Russia can produce new ones. Karas claimed that Russia can currently produce one to three Pantsir and Tor systems per month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To do that, Ukrainian drones would need to cover at least 3,000 kilometers. The Ukrainians have not yet&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":977611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[221695,2000,299,657],"class_list":["post-977610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-drone-war","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}