Ukraine Strikes Moscow Oil Refinery in Massive Drone Barrage

Russia’s Defense Ministry said more than 150 drones were fired against targets across the country on Sunday

By Matthew Luxmoore

Sept. 1, 2024 8:51 am ET1/2

Ukraine struck a major oil refinery in Moscow and other targets across Russia in one of its largest aerial barrages since the start of Russia’s invasion, expanding a campaign of drone attacks on energy facilities and further highlighting the vulnerability of strategic infrastructure deep inside Russia.

Russia’s defense ministry said on Sunday that its air defenses had intercepted or shot down more than 150 drones in 15 regions. At least one of them detonated over a major refinery in Moscow that is owned by state energy giant Gazprom, officials said, while another hit a power station in the neighboring Tver region.

Videos posted on social media showed large explosions engulfing parts of the oil refinery’s sprawling complex, located southeast of the city center. The videos couldn’t immediately be independently verified.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said one of the drones that struck the Moscow refinery had caused damage to an “adjacent technical facility” at the plant, without elaborating, and later said emergency services had put out the flames. He added that there were no casualties and the functioning of the plant hadn’t been affected.

Kyiv didn’t immediately comment on the attacks.

Russia and Ukraine have been carrying out regular strikes against targets tied to the adversary’s military and energy industries. Last week, Russia fired what Ukraine described as the largest rocket-and-drone barrage of the war, leading to temporary blackouts in some Ukrainian cities.

Ukraine has in recent months increased the pace and scale of its drone strikes on Russia, including on energy facilities deep inside the country. It has hit Russian air defenses and fuel and ammunition stores.

“It’s completely justified for Ukrainians to be able to respond to Russian terror precisely where it’s necessary,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday morning.

Zelensky said that in the past week, Russia had fired 160 missiles, 780 glide bombs and 400 explosive drones against Ukraine. On Friday, a Russian glide-bomb strike on a residential area of Kharkiv in Ukraine’s northeast killed at least six and left nearly 100 injured, according to local officials.

Kyiv’s accelerated campaign comes as its forces are seeking to consolidate control over a chunk of Russian territory they seized during a lightning incursion into the Kursk region last month. Moscow’s forces are, meanwhile, pressing forward in eastern Ukraine, threatening the strategic city of Pokrovsk.

The wave of attacks on refineries and other petroleum infrastructure are intended to disrupt fuel supplies to the front line and damage Moscow’s most important export industry. In March, drones struck a major refinery operated by Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil company, as well as oil-storage tanks in a region near the Ukrainian border and a town near St. Petersburg that hosts another large refinery.

Russian refineries were built according to Soviet construction codes that provide protection against catastrophic damage and traditional air bombing. But the Ukrainian attacks have caused damage severe enough to prompt monthslong repairs, which have been made harder by sanctions that limit Moscow’s access to crucial Western parts that helped build and expand its energy industry over recent decades.

The impact on Russia’s military fuel supply from the attacks is difficult to estimate. Refineries are crucial for Russia’s war effort as tanks, ships and planes need refined products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

The Gazprom-owned refinery in Moscow is one of Russia’s largest, and any damage to its operations could cause further disruption to Russia’s exports of fuels. Ukrainian attacks have contributed to a rise this year in global diesel and gasoline prices, energy experts say, while crude prices have remained relatively stable…

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Ukraine has few long-range missiles of its own and is barred by the U.S. and others from using Western-provided, longer-range missiles inside Russia. The Biden administration loosened restrictions on the use of American-supplied weapons after Russia reinvaded Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region in May, allowing Kyiv to use artillery and fire short-range rockets from Himars launchers against command posts, arms depots and other assets across the border there. But the policy didn’t give Ukraine permission to use longer-range ATACMS missiles inside Russia.

Developing a homegrown drone industry has helped Ukraine strike targets deep inside Russia without relying exclusively on Western-supplied missiles. But in recent weeks, officials from Zelensky’s administration have been lobbying the U.S. for permission to use ATACMS inside Russia.

Zelensky said in his nightly address on Saturday that Ukraine needed Western allies to give it more missiles—and permission to use them on Russian territory—to force Russia to seek an end to the war.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on Friday that Kyiv had presented the U.S. with a list of targets that it hopes to strike with ATACMS missiles if the ban on their use in Russia is lifted.

“We have explained what kind of capabilities we need to protect the citizens against the Russian terror that Russians are causing us, so I hope we were heard,” he told CNN.

(This provocation will need end well for Ukraine. The US told Ukraine months ago to stop attacking oil refineries in Russia because of the world market they serve.And especially it will drive up rates in US before the election while Bidan Admin are artificially holding the price down.)

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