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Ukraine Claims Strikes Put Half of Russia's Oil Refining Capacity Out of Action
Confirmed
In Short: Ukraine's Defense Ministry claimed late Sunday that recent strikes on refineries in cities including Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ust-Luga, Perm, Saratov, and Syzran had put 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity out of action.
"Fifty-one percent of struck refining capacity is a significant blow to the enemy’s economy, to its ability to carry out aggression and supply its troop groupings. Our deep strikes continue to bring the war to Russian territory," said a Ukrainian official.
Russia’s Defense Ministry responded Monday, stating it had struck an electrical substation in the Kharkiv region, in addition to energy and port infrastructure and maritime vessels used by Ukraine's military.
Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia launched 205 drones overnight into Monday, of which 172 were shot down or suppressed.
Ukraine’s air force also noted that it had used robotic turrets to successfully shoot down Russian jet-powered drones, including the Geran-5, for the first time.
Operations at a border crossing between Moldova and Ukraine were suspended Monday after a shell fell close to the checkpoint during a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure.
Ukraine has launched repeated attacks on refineries from Moscow to Siberia, sparking a widespread fuel crisis in Russia earlier this year that forced authorities to restrict gasoline sales.
Rescuers carried the body of a killed person found under debris of a sewing factory hit by a Russian airstrike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Another person was also killed in a separate Russian attack on the Sloviansk community in Ukraine's Donetsk region, said Vadym Liakh, head of the Sloviansk city military administration.
Russian officials have not publicly revealed any data on damage caused to the country's oil infrastructure, though President Vladimir Putin admitted in a rare statement that the strikes had cost Russia roughly 1 per cent of its gross domestic product.
Russian refiners have tried to compensate by delaying scheduled maintenance and bringing mothballed units back online, but some of Russia's 32 refineries have been hit as many as 15 times since the start of the war.
Amid ongoing Russian attacks on Ukraine's fuel infrastructure, diversifying supply routes and creating additional storage capacity outside attack-prone areas is crucial for market stability.
"They started attacking oil refineries and openly declared the goal of damaging our economy. Did they achieve their goal? Partially," Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai Club forum of international foreign policy experts.
What this adds
Ukraine's Defense Ministry's claim of 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity being out of action is a new assertion not previously reported in the BACKGROUND.
The accounts agree that Ukraine has launched repeated attacks on Russian refineries, causing significant damage and disruptions to Russia's oil refining capacity.
The comparison shows that while Russia has not publicly disclosed the extent of the damage, Ukraine's Defense Ministry's claim remains unchallenged by official Russian sources.
Background
Ukraine's Defense Ministry claimed late Sunday that recent strikes on refineries in cities including Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ust-Luga, Perm, Saratov, and Syzran had put 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity out of action.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry claimed late Sunday that recent strikes on refineries in cities including Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ust-Luga, Perm, Saratov, and Syzran had put 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity out of action.
What's confirmed
- The Defense Ministry said late Sunday that recent strikes on refineries in cities including Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ust-Luga, Perm, Saratov and Syzran had put 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity out of action.
- “Fifty-one percent of struck refining capacity is a significant blow to the enemy’s economy, to its ability to carry out aggression and supply its troop groupings. Our deep strikes continue to bring the war to Russian territory,” he said.
- Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday that it had struck an electrical substation in the Kharkiv region, in addition to energy and port infrastructure and maritime vessels used by Ukraine's military.
- Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 205 drones overnight into Monday, of which 172 were shot down or suppressed.
- Ukraine’s air force later said that it had used the robotic turrets to successfully shoot down Russian jet-powered drones, including the Geran-5, for the first time.
- Operations at a border crossing between Moldova and Ukraine were suspended Monday after a shell fell close to the checkpoint during a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure, Moldova’s Border Police said.
- KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine says its long-range strikes have neutralized more than half of Russia's oil refining capacity, hampering Moscow's ability to supply its forces during its 4 1/2-year-old invasion.
- Ukraine has launched repeated attacks on refineries from Moscow to Siberia, sparking a widespread fuel crisis in Russia earlier this year that forced authorities to restrict gasoline sales.
- Rescuers carry the body of a killed person found under debris of a sewing factory which was hit by a Russian airstrike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine in Kharkiv, Ukraine October 5, 2026.
- Another person was also killed in a separate Russian attack on the Sloviansk community in Ukraine's Donetsk region, said Vadym Liakh, head of the Sloviansk city military administration.
- Thursday's attack damaged a crude distillation unit responsible for roughly 40 percent of the processing capacity at the 300,000-barrel-a-day Slavneft-YANOS refinery in Yaroslavl, northeast of Moscow.
- State energy firm Ukrenergo said the day before Kyiv’s drone assault on Yaroslavl, Russian attacks damaged energy infrastructure and caused outages across six Ukrainian regions.
What's still developing
- When Russia illegally invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, European Union nations were dependent on the Kremlin for 40 percent of its natural gas.
- In the wake of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine back in 2022, the European Union made major strides in building up its own energy production capacities in an effort to wean itself off of Russian oil and gas.
- Over the weekend, Trump claimed he’d told Volodymyr Zelensky to stop "knocking out diesel fuel" in Russia, arguing that Ukrainian strikes on refineries were contributing to a global shortage.
- In reality, Zelensky had said Ukraine was prepared to stop only if Washington could ensure that Russia genuinely did the same.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called an energy moratorium a "very good idea," but Moscow attached its own demands, including protection for Russian seaborne energy exports and sanctions relief.
- Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that Donald Trump ’s Russia-Ukraine energy truce never had the gas to get going in the first place.
- Russia has historically been the world's third-largest producer of refined fuel products from crude after the US and China.