Ukraine Has Used 15 Home-Made Drone Types To Take Out Russian Refineries

Ukraine is investing in attack drone capabilities because it has recognized that its drone strikes on Russian energy targets have a strategic impact on economic as well as military performance. 

It could be, in that sense, more efficient than other weapons systems given the lack of movement on the front line. JL  

David Axe reports in Forbes:

Drone raids—involving 15 homemade long-range drone types—could compel the Kremlin to pull precious air-defense systems from the front line and redeploy them around oil infrastructure. In a year of raids targeting more than a dozen refineries and depots in Russia, Ukraine has reduced Russia’s refinery capacity by 12%. And that’s having a knock-on effect on gas prices for Russian motorists. Prices spiked this month to a six-month high. To preserve domestic supplies as summer travel looms, Moscow restored a ban on gasoline exports. In boosting protection around refineries, the Russians accept less protection around air bases, ports, headquarters and other military installations

Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery in Samara Oblast overnight on Saturday, igniting fires that burned into the morning. The attack is the latest—and farthest-reaching—in an escalating campaign of Ukrainian drone raids targeting Russian oil facilities.

Samara is more than 500 miles from the front line in eastern Ukraine.

In a year of raids targeting more than a dozen refineries and depots in western Russia, the Ukrainian intelligence directorate temporarily has reduced Russia’s refinery capacity by an estimated 12 percent. And that’s having a knock-on effect on gas prices for Russian motorists.

Prices spiked this month to a six-month high. In a bid to preserve domestic supplies as the summer travel season looms, Moscow has restored a ban on gasoline exports that it had lifted back in September.

Kyiv is counting on oil raids to squeeze Moscow’s finances, complicate military logistics and sow discontent among everyday Russians. But don’t expect the drone campaign to be decisive. “These are spot strikes,” energy expert Hennadii Rіabtsev told Ukrainian Pravda. “They are painful and affect logistics, but they do not significantly impact annual total refining volumes.”

Perhaps more importantly for Ukrainian forces, the drones raids—involving 15 homemade long-range drone types that naval analyst H.I. Sutton has identified—could compel the Kremlin to pull precious air-defense systems from the front line and redeploy them around oil infrastructure.

Seemingly desperate to reinforce its air-defenses, Moscow recently delayed—from 2024 to 2026—the export of two S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries to New Delhi. According to the U.K. defense ministry, plans already are underway to deploy Pantsir air-defense vehicles around energy facilities.

In boosting the protection around refineries, the Russians might accept less protection around air bases, ports, headquarters and other military installations—thus making them easier targets.

“Ukrainian drone strikes against targets within Russia are ... likely increasing pressure on available Russian air-defense assets,” the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. explained.

A massive Ukrainian missile raid, targeting the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s anchorage in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea on Sunday, hinted at the possible consequences as Russia spreads out—and thins out—its best air-defenses.

That missile raid, apparently involving British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles and similar, French-made SCALP-EGs launched by the Ukrainian air force’s Sukhoi Su-24 bombers, may have struck two Black Sea Fleet Ropucha-class landing ships, hastening the extinction of the fleet’s amphibious flotilla.

For the Kremlin, a choice might be imminent: protect refineries or protect front-line forces. It might be impossible to do both. “You can’t defend everywhere,” retired U.S. Army general Mark Hertling noted.