Ukrainian drones have traveled 500 miles and damaged 5% of Russia oil refining

Late Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning, Ukrainian drones struck the Nizhny Novgorod oil refinery in Kstovo, center of Russia, 520 miles from the front line in northern Ukraine. The explosions triggered what the Ukrainian general staff of kyiv described as a “powerful” fire that burned early in the morning.

“The results and the extent of the damage are clarified,” reported the general staff. But Russian bloggers are already panicking by this recent recent Ukrainian strike on around 30 major refineries in Russia, critical strangulation points in the most important industry in the country. “Still another refinery in the flames,” wrote a blogger after denouncing the apparent absence of aerial defenses around strategic sites.

The Ukrainian deep strike campaign targeting Russian oil installations has lasted for about two years, but this month’s raids have marked a significant escalation. The Kstovo factory alone refined 13,000,000 million barrels of oil per year, or about 5% of the total refinery of Russia. Strikes on several other refineries this month may have depressed the production of Russian oil products in more than a tenth.

Refineries can be repaired. But Ukraine can always send more drones. In three years of relentless work, the Ukrainian industry has developed more than a dozen different models of long -range drones, including modified sports planes which regularly transport hundreds of books of explosives up to 800 miles and hit with precision. Other drone models can travel more than 1,000 miles.

Compared to the cost probably of several million dollars in reconstruction of a refinery, a drone – even a swarm of drones – is cheap. Aeroprakt A-22 sports planes that Ukrainians turn into attack drones are sold for about $ 130,000.

Petroleum raids are part of a broader Ukrainian strategy aimed at depriving Russia from its main source of state income and strangling the Russian war effort by stifling its funding.

The Americans are there – for now. New American sanctions against oilmen carrying Russian oil, set up by the administration of former president. Joe Biden, in the past two weeks in power, has started to frighten Chinese and Indian buyers.

If the meadows. Donald Trump supports sanctions, lifts them or doubles, remains to be seen. The first days of Trump were unusually chaotic – and did not projection a clear vision of the new American role in the Russian -Ukraine war. Trump undertook to end the war during his first day in power on January 20, a promise that he obviously did not hold.

It should be noted that Keith Kellogg, a retirement lieutenant-general of the American army and Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, has long pleaded for more strict sanctions on what he characterized as the ‘”Army” energy industry of Russia. However, there is no guarantee that Kellogg’s prescription becomes politics.

Ukrainians are determined to continue to explode Russian oil, which Americans continue to help the wider counter-energy campaign. “Combat work on strategic facilities involved in the supply of support for Russian armed assault against Ukraine will continue,” said the Ukrainian general staff.

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