Russia's total oil refining capacity down 45% due to long-range strikes, Ukrainian military says
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Ukraine's ongoing long-range strike campaign against Russian oil refineries has knocked out 45% of the country's total refining capacity, the General Staff reported on Sept. 21.
"One of the consequences is a shortage of high-quality fuel in the Russian Federation," the General Staff report said.
"Among other things, there is a sharp decline in the production of gasoline and diesel fuel of the Euro-5/K5 standard."
The assessment comes a day after major Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on the Moscow Oil Refinery in a mass attacks on the Russian capital.
The Moscow strike was only the latest in a spate of ongoing attacks against Russian refineries, with two others — in Yaroslavl and Samara oblasts respectively — struck since Sept. 14, according to the Ukrainian military.
According to a Reuters report citing industry sources, the Moscow Oil Refinery, owned by state-controlled company Gazprom Neft, stopped production after the Sept. 20 attack.
The refinery's main crude distillation units were hit, Reuters' sources said, with repair likely requiring weeks to bring the facility back online.
Ukraine's ongoing campaign against Russian refineries, meant to hinder Russia's war machine and economy as a whole, has been made possible by a dramatic scaling up in the size and diversity of Kyiv's arsenal.
Ukraine's long-range strike drones and missiles have proved not only capable of regularly reaching targets more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, but are also launched in sufficient number to overwhelm dense Russian air defense networks, such as the one protecting the Russian capital.
During the Sept. 20 attack, Russian forces shot down more than 1,600 drones across Russia, 450 of which were aimed at Moscow, according to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.
In his report on the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine used several largely domestically produced weapons systems in the attack, including the Flamingo cruise missile.
Zelensky also mentioned a "Pelican," with several media outlets mistakenly reporting this was the first confirmed use of the much-anticipated FP-7 ballistic missile. Later reports clarified that the Pelican is a drone.
