Russian oil refineries are rarely reported in the daily press, but they have been on the front pages since the beginning of the year; first there was the “accident” at the Lukoil refinery in Kstov, then the successful Ukrainian attacks on refineries in Ust-Luz on the Baltic Sea and in Tuapse on the Black Sea. The incidents have gained media attention because they raise fundamental questions about how well Russia’s energy industry will cope with the war, but also what unintended consequences the Ukrainian attacks may have.
Since its inception, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has thrust energy security into the center of our attention after years of ignorance. The Russian invasion in February 2022 triggered a fundamental change in global energy flows, as the EU began to hastily disengage from Russia and diversify its energy sources – before the war, Russian imports into the EU accounted for 40% of all natural gas imports. Now this number has drastically decreased, with imports from Russia falling by half already last year. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the war, Moscow has increased exports of energy raw materials to non-Western countries, primarily to China and India.
The Kremlin first tightened the taps on Europe as part of pressure, while the United States and the EU subsequently imposed massive sanctions against the Russian energy industry. But the battle for energy is also taking place on the battlefield, with Russia repeatedly attacking critical energy infrastructure in Ukraine via drone and missile strikes aimed at plunging millions into medieval conditions, while Ukraine is now using similar tactics against Moscow to damage Russian coffers. Ukrainian drones have been attacking energy facilities (especially) in western Russia, damaging Russian oil refineries and prompting the Kremlin to impose a ban on gasoline exports for at least six months.
Attacks on enemy supply lines and logistics are not uncommon in wartime, but Ukraine’s strategy is gaining importance as the Russians learn to circumvent Western sanctions, as energy export revenues are a major source of funding for Russia’s war machine. In an effort to mitigate Russian dominance, Kiev decided to attack this resource directly. Ukrainian attacks on other energy (and military or defense-industrial) facilities can be expected ever deeper inside Russia and on a larger scale as the Ukrainians improve the capabilities of domestically developed drones.
As the ground war has moved into an attrition phase, with Moscow pulling the tight end of the rope, and as dissatisfaction grows in Kiev with the West’s ambiguous approach to curbing Moscow’s energy export revenues, Ukrainians are trying to help themselves. There have been at least 12 attacks on major Russian refineries since the start of the war, nine of them this year, along with several attacks on oil terminals, warehouses and other associated facilities. These attacks will be an increasingly important element of the war in the future, especially as Ukraine faces internal political problems due to mobilization, insufficiently effective resource allocation, and delayed and waning Western support. Given the intense Russian pressure in the east of the country, Kiev has changed its strategy and is trying to at least partially transfer the war to Russian territory in order to increase its own counter-pressure on Moscow and the price it pays for the war. As Ukraine strengthens its own drone capabilities, this campaign could become a defining element of the wider conflict for the rest of the year.
The enemy is tightening the taps
Tags: Russias Achilles heel Ukrainian attacks Russian oil refineries
