Kyiv (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated that Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities could have cut gasoline supplies in Russia by as much as 20%, amid increasing attacks from both sides on each other’s energy infrastructure.
As diplomatic efforts to end the war remain mostly stalled and progress along the highly contested front line is limited, Russian forces have concentrated on damaging Ukraine’s gas production. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been targeting Russia’s oil refining infrastructure.
How much damage did Ukrainian strikes cause to Russia’s fuel?
“This still needs to be verified, but we believe that they’ve lost up to 20% of their gasoline supply – directly as a result of our strikes,”
Zelenskiy said in remarks to journalists released on Thursday.
Zelenskiy also stated that Russian forces conducted 1,550 strikes on energy-related targets in Ukraine’s Chernihiv, Sumy, and Poltava regions over the past month, but only managed to hit 160 targets.
Moreover, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces had used domestically produced Neptune and Flamingo missiles in recent attacks, part of Ukraine’s effort to scale up its homegrown arms industry. The Kremlin has stated that Russia’s internal fuel market is completely supplied.
How are Ukrainian strikes affecting Russia’s overall oil refining capacity?
In August, Reuters reported that Ukrainian strikes led to a nearly 20% decrease in Russian oil refining on specific days. Reuters reports that Russia’s total offline primary oil refining capacity hit a record monthly high of 6.4 million tons in August, representing a 65% increase from previous estimates that considered maintenance downtime plans.
Drone strikes at different refineries on various dates have shut down a total of 3.1 million tons this month, representing 48% of the overall impact, according to calculations. These strikes have also reduced Russia’s refining capacity by approximately 17%, or 1.2 million barrels per day, during the same period.
Why is Pokrovsk considered strategically important for Russian troops?
Since summer, Russian forces have been trying to push forward on the battlefield, a campaign Zelenskiy claims Ukrainian forces have halted. Zelenskiy also mentioned that his chief of staff and Ukraine’s prime minister intend to visit Washington early next week to discuss issues related to air defence, energy, and sanctions against Russia.
He stated that Kremlin troops will try to “urgently” seize the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, and he noted that Moscow has not succeeded in convincing President Donald Trump that it can capture the entire eastern Donbas region.
“We believe that, as of today, the U.S. and Russia have no shared perspective on the war,”
Zelenskiy said.
“And the U.S. understands that Russia is lying.”
