Ukraine has spent the past several weeks doing something the European Union still can’t manage: closing off the Kremlin’s oil money. While EU foreign ministers spent their July 13 meeting failing, once again, to agree on a 21st sanctions package, Ukrainian drones and special forces were quietly striking their way through nearly every major refinery Russia has left. Kyiv is proving that Russia’s oil industry can be hurt – badly. Europe just needs to stop getting in the way of finishing the job.President Volodymyr Zelensky has called this campaign “long-range sanctions” – military strikes doing the work that economic sanctions were supposed to do. It’s an apt name, and it points to an uncomfortable truth: Ukraine’s drones are currently a more effective sanctions regime than the EU’s actual sanctions regime. That should change, and it can, if Europe treats Ukraine’s campaign as a floor to build on rather than a substitute for its own action.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.In June alone, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense reported that its forces struck 11 Russian oil refineries and 8 defense-industrial enterprises, including the Moscow refinery, which is expected to stay offline into 2027 after losing the supply that once covered roughly 60 percent of the capital region’s fuel needs. Rather than focusing exclusively on military targets, Ukrainian forces have systematically struck oil refineries, export terminals, storage depots, fuel logistics, and maritime infrastructure across Russia.