A news story published today by the Financial Times exposed the economic-political weight of the war in Ukraine like few other times. Washington, according to this information, asked Kyiv to stop its drone attacks on Russian refineries because they cause an increase in the price of oil, and a rise in gasoline in the United States could affect President Joe Biden’s election campaign. The response of the Ukrainian Government has been clearly negative.
The Ukrainian attacks with drones began in January, but since the attack on the Ryazan refinery on March 13 and another attack on the Novokvibishevsk refinery on the 16th, there has been an increase of 4%, reaching 85 dollars a barrel. According to the Oilprice portal, a barrel at 90 dollars is not far away… In addition to the Ukrainian attacks against the Russian oil infrastructure, Saudi Arabia will export less in the coming months while it intensifies refining and Iraq will do the same because it has exceeded its quota. in OPEC.
According to the Financial Times, Washington’s message was sent to the Ukrainian security services (SBU) and military intelligence, the GUR, responsible for the campaign of drone attacks, which seeks, among other objectives, to make war felt among Russians on their own territory. But none of these organizations – and it is not strange – has responded publicly. The Government has done this through its deputy prime minister for integration issues in the European Union and NATO, Olga Stefanishyna.
“We are acting according to the best NATO standards,” Stefanishyna said, adding that in the first month of the Russian invasion, she spoke to NATO headquarters and was told that it was in Alliance standards to first destroy the infrastructure on Russian territory that makes it possible to bomb Ukrainian cities. “We understand the calls of our American partners,” Stefanishyna told an audience at the Kyiv Security Forum. But, “at the same time, we are struggling with the capabilities, resources and practices we have today.”
Drone attacks would have reduced the capacity of Russian refineries by 600,000 barrels a day, according to the Gunvor group, which marketed Russian oil before the invasion of Ukraine. JP Morgan raises the impact to 900,000 barrels. This represents between 10% and 15% of the daily refining capacity of Russian plants.
Such an impact is one of the most unexpected phenomena of this war. Since last January there have been 15 attacks against 13 Russian refineries, according to The Insider portal’s accounting. Of course, with varying fortunes, causing partial damage in most cases; Only one refinery, that of Tuapse, in southern Russia, had to completely suspend activities on January 24.
The point is that drones have been able to fly at distances of up to 900 kilometers into Russia from the Ukrainian borders and, in theory, they would have most of the 31 Russian refineries in their range. This represents overcoming all anti-drone electronic detection and disabling barriers, and also putting Russian anti-aircraft defenses on constant alert.
On January 18, a drone crashed at the Saint Petersburg oil terminal, about 1,200 kilometers from Ukraine, and three days later other devices hit a gas storage and export terminal in the same Leningrad region. Apparently, at least in the first case, it was the Lyutyi kamikaze drone, powered by a propeller motor and equipped with a 50-kilogram explosive warhead. Remains of a Tupolev Tu-141 Strizh, an old Soviet model powered by a turbojet and capable of flying at about a thousand kilometers per hour, would also have been found in Russia.
The Kremlin has not refrained from commenting on the US request to Ukraine. Spokesman Dmitri Peskov said that “it is a matter for the United States” but that “we would have preferred that they ask the Kyiv regime to abandon its terrorist activity against civilian targets and homes.” Peskov was referring, downplaying the attacks on refineries and warehouses, rocket bombings and guerrilla raids in the Russian border region of Belgorod, which have caused at least 26 deaths since February 15.
As regards the refineries, Russia is going to reinforce their security. Artiom Verkhov of the Energy Ministry spoke this week of installing Pantsir anti-aircraft rockets.
The irony is that a Pantsir battery costs, it is believed, about $13 million, while a Lyutyi kamikaze drone costs, according to the Ukrainians, about $350.
In any case, Moscow’s retaliation on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure has been felt, with the largest attack of this type in several months, which on Friday morning left the large Dnipro hydroelectric plant on fire, on the Dnieper River in Zaporizhzhia; The nuclear power plant in this province suffered a power outage (which was repaired); Other energy infrastructures were also attacked in Krivyi Rih and Odessa – in the south -, Kharkiv and Poltava – in the north – and in the west of the country in Khmelnytsy, Vinitsa, Lviv and even Ivano-Frankivsk, forcing the connection of Ukrainian networks with from Poland and Romania. The attacks, despite their large size, caused only five deaths.
A decisive factor was the volume of projectiles launched, 88 missiles of different types and more than 63 drones, which seriously compromised the anti-aircraft defense, to the point that 46 of the missiles could not be intercepted.
