Ukrainian drone strikes have significantly degraded Russian refining capacity, triggering petrol station shortages, long queues and record price spikes. The strikes intensified over the summer, targeting refineries, storage facilities and pipelines, including facilities along the Ryazan–Volgograd corridor and the Ryazan–Moscow oil pipeline. Analysts estimate at least 17% of Russia's refining capacity—about 1.1 million barrels per day—has been disrupted. The campaign carried out at least a dozen attacks between 2 and 24 August and has concentrated on southern and southwestern supply routes. Remote regions, the far east, southern Russia and annexed Crimea are most affected, forcing motorists to buy more expensive fuel grades.
Petrol stations in several regions have run dry while prices have surged to record highs and motorists queue for hours. Over the summer, Kyiv has stepped up its drone campaign against Russia's energy infrastructure, a strategy designed to put pressure on Moscow and to signal that Ukraine still holds leverage in the peace talks led by the US president, Donald Trump.
Analysts estimate that Ukraine's recent strikes on Russian oil refineries have disrupted at least 17% of all of Russia's refining capacity, an equivalent of 1.1m barrels a day. Between 2 and 24 August, Ukraine carried out at least a dozen strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, according to media reports, with the majority hitting facilities along the RyazanVolgograd corridor in the country's south-west.
This is not the first fuel crisis; it has happened several times before the war, said Boris Aronstein, an independent oil and gas analyst. But, Aronstein said, Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries and storage facilities had made this the most severe crisis in recent years. The attacks are massive, coordinated, and repeated; they come in waves, and the refineries simply do not have time to repair the damage caused by the previous attack before the next one occurs, Aronstein added.
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