Ukraine paralyzes 38% of Russia’s oil refineries with drone strikes
Photo: Ukrainian drones paralyzed Russian refineries (Russian media)
Ukrainian drones have dealt a historic blow to Russia's oil industry, paralyzing 38% of oil refineries and creating an unprecedented crisis in the fuel market, according to Russian media.
Since August, Ukrainian drones have been attacking large oil refineries in Russia, causing a serious crisis in the Russian fuel market.
According to data from the Siala agency, cited by the Russian agency RBC, at the end of September, almost 38% of the country's primary oil refining capacity was idle, which is about 338,000 tons per day.
For comparison, in August, the available volume of gasoline and diesel fuel production decreased by 6%, and in September, by another 18%.
This was an unprecedented figure for Russian oil refining. Previous downtime records — in August 2023 (23%, 206,000 tons per day) and May 2022 and 2020 — were lower.
According to Siala's estimates, approximately 70% of these downtimes were caused by Ukrainian drone attacks, which disabled about a quarter of the total refining capacity, or about 236,000 tons per day.
In September, four more plants stopped production due to drone strikes. Among them:
- Kinef in the Leningrad region, the second largest refinery in Russia in terms of capacity,
- Rosneft's Ryazan refinery,
- Gazprom's Novokuybyshevsk and Astrakhan gas processing plants.
The first two stopped working in early September, and the others at the end of the month.
The Russian news agency Kommersant also noted that this has reduced gasoline production by one million tons, and the domestic market deficit has reached approximately 20% of demand.
Meanwhile, The Moscow Times, citing a statement by economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, writes that Russian companies are almost unable to quickly stabilize the situation.
The restoration of the plants could take months, especially due to sanctions that have complicated the supply of Western equipment used for modernization in previous years. And replacing it with Chinese equivalents is not so easy.
Attacks on oil refineries in Russia
On the morning of September 27, the Russians reported a drone attack on the Chuvash Republic. They said a drone had hit a pumping station, but there was no official confirmation from Ukraine.
In the summer of 2025, Ukraine resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries and pipelines.
The coordinated work of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Special Operations Forces, as well as the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) and Unmanned Systems Forces, knocked out a total of about 20% of oil refining in Russia, leading to a fuel crisis and logistical problems.
