Ukraine's Security and Defense Forces have "put out of action" more than 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity through recent long-range strikes, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said in a statement published by the Defense Ministry on 4 October. These "carefully thought-out" actions were aimed at "bleeding the Russian war machine" and "destroying its military-economic potential," Khmara said.

Ukraine treats Russia's refineries as a priority target because their revenue helps fund the war. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on 1 October that the strikes had cost Russia 1% of its GDP and had "partially" achieved their goal, Interfax reported.

The ministry did not publish how it calculated the figure.

"The consequences of Ukrainian operations are not always visible immediately. But the effect accumulates and produces a tangible result," the ministry said.

Ukrainian deep strikes continue to bring the war to Russian territory

The ministry named eight recently struck facilities, among others. One of them is the Moscow Oil Refinery, which Ukraine targeted in a massive drone attack on the night of 20 September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The refinery, operated by Gazprom Neft in Moscow's Kapotnya district, supplies about 40% of Moscow's fuel market and 70% of the Moscow region's demand for gasoline and aviation fuel, according to Russian news Telegram channel Astra.

Another was KINEF, which Ukraine has attacked repeatedly. It is Russia's second-largest oil refinery by capacity, and the Ukrainian military struck it on the night of 30 August, setting off a fire at the facility.

The ministry also named the Yaroslavl, Perm, Ilsky, Saratov, and Syzran refineries and the Ust-Luga port complex.

Ukraine triples production and procurement of long-range drones—and this is not the end

This year, Ukraine has tripled the production and procurement of long-range attack drones, the ministry said.

"This is not the limit. We will continue to scale up deep-strike capabilities," the statement said.

International cooperation is part of that push. Berlin will fund the production of additional DeepStrike-class long-range drones in Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on 15 April. The sides also agreed to jointly develop and produce a medium- and long-range drone system.

Ukraine and Germany also signed an agreement on the joint production of Bars drones, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on 8 July. The Bars' modular design allows it to be used for deep strikes, among other missions.

Oil refinery output has fallen

Russian refineries cut crude oil processing by 14% in the first nine months of the year compared with the same period last year amid Ukrainian drone attacks, according to calculations by two industry sources.

Experts' estimates of the decline differ widely. In August, Serhii Vakulenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center put it at 25–28%, while Russian economic commentator Vyacheslav Shiryaev put it at 65–70%, according to Defense-Aerospace.

Fuel production data give a more concrete picture: in July, Russia's gasoline and diesel output was about a quarter to a third lower than in March 2026, the outlet reported.

Russian oil refineries earned more in the first half of this year than in the same period a year earlier, even as Ukrainian drone strikes kept a fifth of the country's refining capacity out of action, The Moscow Times reported. Record wholesale prices and fast-growing payments from the federal budget have more than covered what the attacks and the repairs cost. Russian consumers are covering the rest at the pump.

Where the profits come from

Russian refineries earned 938 billion rubles ($11.1 billion) in the first half of 2026, 16.2% more than a year earlier, according to the state statistics service Rosstat. Ukrainian drone strikes have put a fifth of the country's refining capacity out of action.

Two things produced that result, according to Promsvyazbank analyst Yekaterina Krylova: high wholesale prices on the SPIMEX commodity exchange, and a sharp increase in state fuel subsidies.

Wholesale prices took off in March, after the war in the Middle East began: light petroleum products have risen 37% since late February and diesel by a third, with July bringing record exchange prices of 82,600 rubles ($982) per tonne of AI-95 gasoline. Crude got cheaper for the refiners over the same stretch, as the ruble price of Urals oil peaked in spring and fell through the summer while the products made from it kept getting dearer.

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The budget pays the difference, the country pays the bill

Russia's damper mechanism compensates oil companies for selling fuel cheaply at home rather than exporting it, and the payments grow as the gap between domestic and world prices widens.

The Finance Ministry paid out close to 350 billion rubles ($4.2 billion) a month in the second quarter, and 500 billion rubles ($5.9 billion) for July and August together. Krylova expects the subsidies and the prices together to widen net margins by 45% in the third quarter, to 35,000 rubles ($416) per tonne of gasoline.

Russia's retail prices tell the other half of the story. Gasoline has risen 21.2% since January and diesel 18.4%, well above Russian inflation. Budget money lets the majors, which own both the refineries and the filling-station chains, hold their own forecourt prices near inflation. Independent chains have no such cushion: they buy at the higher wholesale prices and sell dearer, which is how Russia has been squeezing them out of the market. For drivers, the crisis has been physical as well as financial, with rationing and dry pumps spreading across dozens of regions.

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What the strikes have cost

Ukrainian drones have been hitting Russian refineries since 2024, and the campaign escalated sharply from August 2025, when strikes deep inside Russia became systematic. Russian refineries disclose none of their losses from it.

Ukraine's General Staff estimated the total damage to the Russian oil industry since August 2025 at $13.5 billion, in a count published in early July. The insurance broker Mains put direct losses to the oil and gas sector from drone strikes last year at more than 100 billion rubles ($1.2 billion), and above a trillion rubles once lost profit and indirect damage are counted.

An oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban in southern Russia was attacked overnight on 13 September, Astra reported. By morning, residents began posting videos showing smoke over the refinery and nearby areas. That same morning, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR) reported that Ukrainian drones had struck the Slavyansk-EKO refinery.

Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries have become systematic, aimed in part at reducing the Russian military’s access to fuel, which is critical for waging the war. Ukrainian forces have been striking strategic facilities located hundreds of kilometers from the front line.

The design capacity of Slavyansk-EKO is approximately 5.2 million tonnes per year, though actual volumes are lower by about one to two million tonnes, Militarnyi reports.

Thick smoke visible for dozens of kilometers

The Ukrainian strike hit a key oil-processing unit and the facility’s oil storage tank farm, which “fuels the criminal war against Ukraine,” HUR reported.

Two oil storage tanks were destroyed in the strike, according to photos published by Dnipro Osint. Militarnyi noted that the photos also show damage to neighboring tanks.

The strike reportedly hit the area containing the facility’s largest storage tanks. The refinery operates using purchased or tolling crude oil because it does not have its own crude oil production base.

The refinery has been targeted before

Slavyansk-EKO is one of the largest independent oil refineries in southern Russia. The facility is located in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, about 69 kilometers northwest of Krasnodar.

Ukraine’s General Staff said that the refinery is “part of the energy rear of the Russian Federation and involved in supplying the armed forces of the aggressor.”

Before the 13 September strike, Ukrainian drones had struck the refinery at least four times, starting in 2024:

• 27 April 2024 — a Ukrainian drone attack damaged the Slavyansk refinery, after which a fire broke out at the facility.
  
• 19 May 2024 — SBU drones attacked the Slavyansk refinery, after which the facility suspended operations.
  
• 26 January 2026 — Ukrainian Defense Forces struck infrastructure at the Slavyansk-EKO refinery. According to preliminary data, elements of the primary oil refining unit were damaged.
  
• Five months later, on 28 June, Ukraine struck the Slavyansk refinery again, causing a large fire at the facility. EP noted that the refinery supplies fuel, including to occupied Crimea.