Ukraine’s Drone Attacks Persist into the Second Day

Putin forced to acknowledge the attack

For the first time since Putin invaded Ukraine, oil prices surged by 2% as a result of Ukraine’s drone sanctions targeting Russian refineries. Within the last forty-eight hours, Russian oil facilities responsible for over 10% of oil refining capacity have suffered damage.

On Wednesday, Ukraine targeted Rosneft’s largest refinery in Ryazan, 900kms from Kyiv, Ukraine. This marks one of the most significant assaults on Russia’s energy sector in recent months. The refinery processes approximately 12.7 million metric tons of oil annually, constituting 4.6% of Russia’s total refining capacity.

Hours after the attack, CNBC reported that the shock made its way into the oil markets:

Crude oil futures jumped Wednesday after Ukraine struck refineries in Russia, underlining risks to production and fuel supplies from the war in Eastern Europe.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for April gained $2.16, or 2.78%, to settle at $79.72 a barrel.

A Ukrainian source told Reuters the drone attacks were conducted by Ukraine’s SBU security service: “We are systematically implementing a detailed, calculated strategy to reduce Russia’s economic potential”.

“The main goal, I have no doubt about it, is to — if not to disrupt the presidential elections in Russia — then at least somehow interfere with the normal process of expressing the will of citizens,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russia’s RIA state news agency.

Ukraine’s drone swarms are getting bigger and stronger by the day. With elections right around the corner, Putin felt the need to express his views. Under normal conditions, he lets his sidekicks talk about attacks inside Russian territory. But this is not a normal week because the Kremlin wants as many people to vote in the Presidential election where Putin is expected to elect himself.

Numbers still remain a bit sketchy

I would love to get my hand on the number of drones that participated in the attack yesterday and today. According to the Russians there were two dozen drones that participated in Tuesdays attack and 60 drones on Wednesday. And then there was another large scale drone attack on the Beriev headquarters in Taganrog near Rostov-on-Don last week.

It is raining drones on Russian military and economic assets.

There is something I want you to take a look at:

After the drone attacks commenced yesterday, especially given that it is a presidential election week, the Russians should have anticipated further visits from Ukraine’s drones. They should have also foreseen that the refineries would be the targets, as this list of targets has been glaringly obvious for over two months now. In the attached video above, you can witness the drones traveling in broad daylight, emitting enough noise to be captured by a phone’s microphone.

One after another, the drones target a specific tower in the refinery before infiltrating it.

No response whatsoever. No air-defense.

There can only be one reason for this: Russian air-defense assets are stretched to the maximum. They are not in a position to protect their vital assets.

Why Ukraine keeps bursting the distillation units?

The tower repeatedly hit during the drone attack in Ryazan was the crude distillation unit (CDU) AVT-6. When Ukrainian drones attacked Lukoil’s NORSI refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region yesterday, they targeted the crude distillation unit.

The crude oil distillation unit (CDU) is the first processing unit in petroleum refineries and one of the most critical. The CDU distills the incoming crude oil into various fractions of different boiling ranges, each of which are then processed further in the other refining processing units.

When a distillation unit catches fire, it can cause significant damage and require extensive repairs or even replacement depending on the extent of the damage. Repairing or replacing such equipment can be challenging and costly, as it involves specialized equipment and expertise. On top of this, the downtime incurred during repairs can impact production and lead to financial losses for the refinery.

Ukraine is not simply targeting refineries.

They are targeting a specific part of the refinery and succeeding.

Repeated hits at the same spot. Repairs take time.

Time is money.

Anton Gerashchenko former advisor to Ukraine’s internal affairs minister said, “In early January, Lukoil reported problems at the Nizhny Novgorod oil refinery. One of the two existing gasoline production units was shut down. The reason was attributed to the breakdown of compressor equipment purchased abroad.

It was impossible to supply components for it due to sanctions. Then LUKOIL even asked other producers to help with the supply of up to 200 thousand tons of Ai-95 gasoline in January and February, although the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation officially persisted and stated that it would not affect the market. A month later, it began to prepare restrictions on gasoline exports in Russia”.

How does this help Ukraine?

They are increasing the cost of war for Russia.

Last week, the UK Ministry of Defense explained why the Russians banned gasoline exports:

• It is likely that Russia’s refining capacity has been temporarily reduced by multiple Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle strikes against refineries across Russia. The export ban will relieve pressure on supplies and enable Russia to make repairs to its refineries. Repairs are likely to take longer than normal as western sanctions have prevented the import of some necessary components.

Six months ban to help Russia make repairs.

It is possible that the Russians anticipated that attacks would continue, repairs would take time, and it would be better to forgo export revenue in order to prevent gasoline prices at the pump from rising. That is a choice they are making. They have decided to keep inflation under control while forgoing revenue from exports, which could otherwise help fund the war.

Without these attacks, Russia would never be in a position to make those choices; they would simply continue business as usual. However, if Ukraine continues to target these refineries repeatedly, or other economic assets within range, it will further squeeze the struggling Russian economy.

Every penny diverted from the Russian war machine aids the Ukrainian struggle for freedom.

The way Western media covers the war against Ukraine has gone off-track. As a result, I have decided to make my Ukraine stories public, without placing them behind the paywall.