In the first 10 days of July, The Insider recorded six Ukrainian raids that caused significant damage to Russian refinery production capacity and/or tank farms — a record figure. Despite officials’ promises to protect such facilities with air defense systems, they are unlikely to be able to do so anytime soon: there are simply not enough systems, the plants are spread across too vast a territory, and even the most layered defenses can be penetrated by drones, as happened at the Moscow refinery. If the strikes continue, Russia’s fuel crisis will become structural. Prices are rising not only for gasoline but also for diesel, which could create problems both at the front and also across the entire country — negatively affecting agriculture, inflation, and even garbage collection.Contents1.The stages of Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s oil refineries2.No countermeasure3.Consequences of the fuel crisis4.Who in Russia needs gasoline?5.How is the Kremlin responding?6.What happens if the strikes do not stopIn October 2025, The Insider predicted that Russian oil refining would face serious problems the following year, as a range of long-term repairs combined with sudden shocks from Ukrainian raids to gradually reduce production capacity, leading to inevitable fuel shortages. That forecast came true just eight months later. Although there are still no visible signs that Russia’s problems in the fuel and energy sector are significantly limiting the military’s capabilities, they have already led to the most serious and prolonged crisis in Russia’s rear since the start of the war. And because Russia has still not found a way to defend against such strikes, the situation will worsen.The stages of Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s oil refineriesUkraine began carrying out its first strikes on Russian refineries in June 2022, but they were rare and caused little damage. In 2022-2024, Ukrainian drones carried out 31 raids on oil, gas processing, and petrochemical facilities in Russia, mostly in border regions and with limited damage to production complexes. The drones, which were not yet highly advanced, had three main limitations: they struggled to hit technologically vulnerable parts of refineries, carried relatively small warheads, and were severely limited in range.The InsiderIn 2025, the situation changed qualitatively. Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces had finally taken shape as a separate branch of the military — and, as is now clear, a formidable one. It was one year ago that Ukraine’s strategy of deep strikes against targets in Russia’s distant rear began to work, and fuel and energy facilities were among its highest priorities. Ukrainian developers were able to significantly modernize the tactical and technical characteristics of Kyiv’s drones, making them far less visible to air defense radars and more resistant to electronic warfare. Their accuracy also improved.The attacks escalated. In 2025, there were 77 successful examples — and from August to October alone, there were more of them than in the previous three years combined (34 in three months, compared with 31 for all of 2022-2024). Ukrainian forces began operations against some enterprises on an almost weekly basis while continuing to focus on specific geographic clusters: the Ryazan refinery, along with those in Volgograd, Saratov, Syzran, Novokuibyshevsk, and Kuibyshev.The InsiderIn 2026, Ukraine’s military managed not only to scale up its campaign against Russian oil refining across all of European Russia, but also to expand the strike zone to Siberia. Since April, it has maintained a steady level of more than 10 successful attacks per month on refinery production capacity and tank farms. The campaign affects not only oil and gas processing, but also petrochemical plants, oil and gas transport infrastructure, storage, distribution and export facilities for raw materials and finished products, and even extraction assets, including drilling rigs on the Caspian Sea shelf.In July 2026 alone, five major oil refining facilities halted operations after Ukrainian attacks. The turning point was the attack on the Omsk refinery, Russia’s largest, located about 2,500 kilometers from the combat zone. After the strike on the plant in Omsk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, with good reason, that the very concept of “strategic depth” as one of the Kremlin’s key advantages in the war no longer fully reflects reality, as almost all Russian refineries are now within range of Ukrainian long-range weapons. So far, however, there have been no examples of strikes on the most remote refineries in the Irkutsk Region or Khabarovsk Krai.The InsiderFrom January to July 2026, more than 50 raids on refineries were recorded, including six attacks in the first 10 days of July alone. Until now, Ukraine had not managed to carry out more than 15 such attacks in a month, a level reached in November 2025 and May 2026.According to some sources, the Moscow refinery, attacked in mid-June, will not be able to restore production until 2027, though some oil and gas industry experts have predicted a shorter timeline. Under sanctions, already difficult and expensive repairs are further complicated by the need to source components and equipment from abroad.Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defense industry is building increasingly long-range drones. The FP-1 model that reached the Omsk refinery carried a 60-kilogram warhead and had built-in control modules with elements of artificial intelligence.No countermeasureAs of mid-2026, all of Russia’s largest refineries other than those in Eastern Siberia are within range of Ukrainian strike systems and have experienced at least one successful attack on production capacity and/or tank farms. Some of these facilities have already been hit in more than 10 recorded raids, which appears to be creating a cumulative damage effect that has lengthened repair times.The InsiderAlthough there is still no confirmation that the campaign against oil refining capacity is directly limiting the Russian armed forces’ battlefield capabilities, its importance to the broader course of the conflict is significant. For the first time since the start of the war, Russians across the country are facing costs that directly affect their daily lives.The shock of the fuel crisis is not only feeding into public attitudes, but also undermining socioeconomic stability, generally raising the “price” the Kremlin pays to continue the war. Notably, the Trump administration considers strikes on oil refineries an “escalation” of the sort that could ultimately lead to peace.Even more notable is that no clear solution to Ukrainian raids appears to be in sight. Vladimir Putin has so far put forward only two more or less concrete proposals: increasing air defense coverage for fuel and energy facilities, and developing a network of mini-refineries.In a conversation with propagandist Pavel Zarubin published June 28, Putin said:“The first task is to quickly and substantially increase production of the most in-demand air defense systems. To constantly improve them in line with the needs of conducting combat operations and protecting the relevant facilities, taking into account what the enemy is using — the issue is the speed of increasing their production and delivery to the troops, or for protecting critical infrastructure facilities... We need to come out of repairs faster, we need to arrange the necessary volume of imports and, as I have already said, reliably protect these facilities.”The problem with this proposal is that air defense production cannot be increased quickly, given demand for other military products. More importantly, it is impossible to reliably protect dozens of large industrial complexes in different parts of the country with air defense systems. Even the Moscow refinery, located behind several rings of air defense, was hit during a massive aerial attack. Russia will not have the resources to create similar rings around other facilities in the foreseeable future.It is impossible to reliably protect dozens of large industrial complexes in different parts of the country with air defense systems