Hitting Russia's Oil Refineries Deep Within

[The Orsknefteorgsintez oil refinery [Orsk in Orenburg region] was hit."

"A strike was recorded, followed by a fire on the territory of the enterprise."

"The facility is involved in supplying the Russian occupation army."

Ukraine Military General Staff

 

"The enemy must understand a simple fact: it no longer has a 'safe rear'."

"Distance no longer guarantees protection -- every region where enterprises support the war against Ukraine is within reach'."

Security Service of Ukraine 

 

"We have to minimize [Russia’s] physical ability to send oil to the vessels and transport it outside of their ports."

"Our main target here is to limit Russia's ability to finance war."

"Prices rose without our participation. It was because of the Iran war initiated by the U.S."

"But for Ukraine it has created additional problems because [Moscow] is getting money for the same volume of oil it exports."

Oleksandr Kharchenko, director, Kyiv-based Energy Industry Research Center  

Ukrainian drone strikes hit oil infrastructure across Russia this week, sparking huge fires. (Reuters: Governor of Krasnodar Region Veniamin Kondratyev)

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared the success of his military's latest long-range drone attack at an oil facility deep within Russia, causing a huge fire on Wednesday. The oil facility is located in the Ural Mountains, the Perm region of Russia, over 1,500 kilometres from the border with Ukraine. There, a Russian oil pumping station was struck, reflecting Ukraine's military strategy of targeting Russia's energy infrastructure.  

 

Perm Governor Dmitry Makhonin, while admitting a drone had hit, declined to mention details, leaving it as an unspecified industrial facility. The fire that resulted was massive. Yet another Ukrainian success in its counteroffensive to the Russian military's unceasing night time attacks on Ukrainian cities and the country's energy infrastructure. An increasing number of long-range attacks with increasingly accurate, domestically developed drones has infuriated Vladimir Putin, who spits rage at Ukraine's 'terrorism'.

 

Russia's larger army continues to press slowly forward passing four years of an invasion that isn't really war, according to Vladimir Putin, but a 'special military operation' where he has ordered his military to flatten Ukrainian towns and villages, dislocating millions of Ukrainians as he forges on with his brutal mission to occupy more than the 20 percent of Ukraine's geography it currently holds, to add to Greater Russia. 

 

A Panamanian-flagged vessel carrying Russian crude oil is moored of the coast of the Philippines on April 1. The country purchased its first shipment of Russian oil in five years because of the global supply crunch (Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

 

Ukraine, for its part, continues to have an advantage in refining drone technology, both for attack and for defence purposes. The video that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted showed an immense plume of dark smoke rising into the atmosphere close to an urbanized area. Ukraine, its president explained, was expanding the range of its long-distance strikes. He announced a new phase in efforts to limit Russia's capacity to wage war, by impacting its revenue stream through oil extraction and shipment to willing buyers. 

 

"The straight-line distance is more than 1,500 kilometres. We will continue to increase these  ranges", he promised. 

 

Only the previous day, Ukraine had struck the Tuapse oil refinery and terminal on the Black Sea for the third time in less than two weeks. The attack led to the evacuation of the local population from the area, while creating what President Putin stated could be "serious environmental consequences". Mr. Putin's blinkered vision fails to recognize his own orders to the Russian military create similar conditions in Ukraine.  

 

A satellite image shows smoke rising following a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil pumping station amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Bashkultaevo, Perm Region. (Reuters: Planet Labs BBC)

 

The plan of escalating Ukraine's long-distance strike campaign against Russian oil facilities to put a grinding stop to Moscow's reaping a financial windfall from a U.S. waiver on sanctions in the midst of a global supply shortage caused by the Iran war, appears to be going the way of Ukraine's advantage.  

"Kyiv is exploiting the vulnerabilities of Russia's large land mass."

"Ukrainian forces will likely continue to exploit the large attack surface of Russia's deep rear and overstretched Russian air defences to launch more frequent and larger strikes against Russian oil infrastructure and military assets."

Institute for the Study of War, Washington  

Ukraine's Calling Cards in Russia's Interior

"[At least two production lines had been assembled in Yelabuga, and Moscow had managed to establish independent production of drones]."

"More spare parts and components are now coming from other countries, so it is not all about Iran."

"Moscow's goal is to reach a full, closed production cycle of such unmanned aerial vehicles in Russia by 2026."

Deputy Head of Ukraine's Military Intelligence, Vadym Skibitsky 

"It is more than 1,000 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, and the Russians saw that this was a big problem."

"It turned out that this production facility in Tatarstan, in which they invested a lot of money, is not rare." 

"Weapons are reaching there, and air defense will not save them. I think this is just the beginning."

Oleksandr Kovalenko, military analyst, co-founder, Information Resistance project

Attack on the oil refinery In Russia's Nizhnekamsk. (local Telegram channels)

One of Russia's largest oil refineries and a drone factory located in the Russian province of Tatarstan were attacked by Ukrainian drones in what seems to be the deepest strike yet by Kyiv within Russian territory. The facilities are located near the cities of Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, some 1,200 kilometres east of Ukraine. Russian regional authorities reported that a dozen people were injured.

Russian refineries and oil terminals have become priority targets in recent months of Ukrainian drone attacks. Reflecting stepped-up assaults on Russian territory. Which seems a fair balance of events. Given that Moscow feels entirely entitled to attack and occupy Ukrainian sovereign territory, declaring them henceforth to be part of the Russian Federation. At the same time Vladimir Putin seems to feel that Russian territory is sacrosanct, and Kyiv is engaging in forbidden moves attacking inside Russian territory.

Drone developers in Ukraine have been extending the range of their weapons' productions. Resulting in Kyiv compensating for its battlefield disadvantage in troops and weapons supplies. The unmanned vehicles represent for the weapons-strapped Ukraine military an affordable option, while awaiting promised  additional U.S. military aid which has created a critical shortage in its delay.

The 1,000-km front line has seen relatively little activity from either side, as both Russia and Ukraine find themselves at a stalemate; both are short on troop replacement. While Moscow has trumpeted that it has gained new conscripts as a result of public outrage over what it claims is Ukraine's deadly terrorist assault last month on a Moscow concert hall that killed 140  people, President Zelenskyy has signed a bill lowering the conscription age from 27 to 25, in the hope of filling at least part of the military's request for 500,000 new recruits.

According to Ukrainian security and intelligence officials a "drone-production site" in Yelabuga was targeted with the use of Ukrainian-produced long-range drones. Near Yelabuga a factory engaged in building Iranian-designed Shahed exploding drones was the surprise recipient of Ukraine's very effective calling cards. An overnight attack on the Nizhnekamsk oil factory was also in the cards, according to Ukrainian officials.

 

UAV attack in Tatarstan, Russia on April 2, 2024. (screenshot from a video on social media)