Ukraine masters the art of drone-follow up attacks

Their Strategy continues to evolve

The first time I observed Ukraine employ the attack-wait-watch-attack strategy against a Russian military asset was in mid-October 2024. They targeted an oil depot in the Rostov region with drones, watching as storage tanks erupted into flames one by one for five days before launching another drone strike on the same site to maximize destruction.

Subsequent strikes have since gained significant momentum.

Last week, on January 15th and 16th, Ukraine attacked Rosneft’s Lisinkya oil refinery in Voronezh Oblast. Positioned close to the frontline and near Kursk Oblast — the epicenter of the conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces — this refinery, along with its associated storage units, holds substantial strategic importance. Its production capacity, crucially, is not earmarked for export but is directly fueling the war effort.

The refinery was still ablaze when Ukraine launched another attack on the site yesterday. This was not the only target; Ukrainian drones also struck the Smolensk Aviation Plant last night, a facility that constructs and maintains Russia’s Su-25 fighter jets.