A fuel depot in Russia has been burning for three days, and the Kremlin isn’t even searching for answers.
Have they given up on trying to protect their military assets?
Twice in the last two weeks, Ukraine’s long-range drones have targeted Russian fuel depots. When the first strike hit the Atlas plant in Rostov Oblast on August 3rd, Russia should have recognized that another plant in the region was equally vulnerable to drone attacks.
The plant at Proletarsk is massive, holding more than 5,000 tons of fuel in each of its 74 tanks. This depot is a critical component of Russia’s strategic oil reserves in Southern Russia. On August 17th, Ukraine sent its drones to target the depot, and since then, the fuel tanks have been exploding one by one. The massive size of the tanks and the resulting fire have made it impossible for Russian firefighters to extinguish the blaze. It has been three days, and it is still burning.
How can you leave a site as massive as this one unprotected against Ukrainian drones, especially after the August 3rd attack on the Atlas fuel depot? Ukraine’s intelligence services, which claimed responsibility for the attack, even revealed to the world the type of drones they used: 15 Obsidian UAVs from the Nayan project.
I have no idea whether to call this sheer incompetence or simply a lack of air-defense assets needed to protect highly critical military resources. It makes no sense whatsoever to leave more than $200 million worth of fuel sitting unattended under the open sky.
It’s probably a bit of both.
It could also be a side effect of a system that is extremely comfortable with lying — they do it reflexively. According to Rostov Oblast Governor Vasily Golubev, Russian air defenses intercepted Ukrainian drones, and the falling debris caused the depot to catch fire. But unless you acknowledge your mistakes, how are you going to fix them?
Now the Proletarsk depot is burning, with reports indicating that 24 reservoirs have caught fire, meaning we’re not even halfway through. It’s likely all lost.
While the activities in Kursk Oblast have grabbed much of the media’s attention, Ukraine has not relented in its deep-fire strategy aimed at increasing the cost of war for Russia.
Open-source investigators are tracking practically every possible move by both sides. Repeatedly, we hear of the damage suffered by the Russian army. In comparison, the damage suffered by Ukrainian forces seems to be much less. It’s not negligible — scores of infantry vehicles, a HIMARS unit, and plenty of artillery units have been taken out — but that’s expected at the frontlines and the immediate rear.
The only time I saw the Russians fully utilize their power to target Ukrainian military assets deep within their territory was in early June when they repeatedly struck Ukraine’s forward airbases. But that was it — nothing more after that. Meanwhile, Ukraine is relentlessly pursuing its deep-fire strategy, which is beginning to corrode Russia’s ability to wage war.
It’s almost the same strategy they deployed against the Black Sea Fleet: keep hitting, keep chipping away at the margins. On an isolated level, those hits were just one ship, maybe two, in a month. But over a year, 30% of the Black Sea Fleet was knocked out, severely restricting their operations.
Ukraine is now using its drones to deliver the same impact on Russian supplies, logistics, airfields, and other military assets stationed within Russia. Anything in occupied territory, particularly air-defense systems, remains the focal point of ATACMS attacks.
Compared to April through June, we are witnessing a significant ramp-up in Ukraine’s drone attacks against military assets inside Russia. I used to cover every time Ukraine destroyed an S-400/S-300 system, but now it’s happening so frequently that I’m starting to pass them over.
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