Ukraine’s campaign of long-range strikes against Russian infrastructure is gradually evolving from an episodic military operation into a systematic strategy aimed at pressuring Russia’s economy, logistics networks and daily life. Kyiv is focusing primarily on facilities whose restoration is complicated by sanctions, equipment shortages and the limited capabilities of Russia’s air defenses. Oil refineries have become the main target of the campaign, but in recent days they have been joined by data centers and digital services, including Yandex infrastructure.
The strategy is not about completely destroying individual enterprises, but about striking the nodes on which the entire system depends. As the commander of a Ukrainian unit using the call sign Tango explained, “We don’t need to hit the entire plant. We know where to strike so that it stops operating and cannot be restored.” This approach simultaneously causes material damage, raises repair costs and creates political pressure—both on Russia’s leadership and on Ukraine’s Western partners.
According to an analysis by The Washington Post, at least two-thirds of Russia’s 36 major oil refineries came under attack between April and August. Of the 54 strikes examined, more than half reportedly hit electro-desalting and atmospheric-vacuum distillation units, known as ELOU-AVT. These are basic elements of oil refining: first, water and salts are removed from the crude, after which the oil is separated into fractions used to produce gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and other products.
The particular importance of these units stems from the fact that they are not simply individual pieces of equipment, but the starting point of the entire production chain. If such a unit is disabled, a refinery may have to partially or completely halt processing. At the same time, sanctions imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine have limited Moscow’s access to Western equipment for atmospheric-vacuum distillation and secondary refining. Repairs are possible in principle, but the time required to deliver and manufacture the necessary components may exceed the interval between attacks.
The economic impact is already visible. According to S&P Global Energy, by the end of August approximately half of Russia’s total refining capacity had been taken offline—more than twice as much as at the end of 2025. Oil-product exports in early August were roughly half their level during the same period the previous year. Domestically, this has led to restrictions on fuel sales, an approximately 20 percent increase in gasoline and diesel prices since the beginning of the year, and increased inflation. Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the attacks had partially achieved their objective, saying they had reduced GDP by about one percent.
However, the impact of the strikes is not limited to the immediate shutdown of production. Repeated attacks on the same facilities create a cumulative effect: metal structures weaken, the risk of accidents increases, and repair crews are forced to work under constant threat. Russian authorities have responded by strengthening site security, planning to reinforce air defenses and allowing private companies to purchase protective equipment independently. In addition, the state has gained the power to take control of critical infrastructure if its owners are unable or unwilling to ensure its security or restore damaged facilities.
Ukraine’s military advantage is being shaped by a combination of factors. First, the country has increased production of inexpensive drones and their components. Second, decoys—drones without explosives designed to overwhelm Russian air defenses—are incorporated into attack waves. One participant in the campaign said that the number of drones and decoys in each attack had doubled since last year. Even if only 2–3 percent of the aircraft reach their targets, as researcher Andrzej Rácz believes, the scale of the assault may be too large to repel effectively.
Third, Ukrainian operations use intelligence support from Western partners. According to a European official, U.S. data on the locations of Russian radars and air-defense systems makes it possible to plan routes that reduce the likelihood of detection. Ukraine is also experimenting with launching drones from high-altitude balloons, which reduces the amount of fuel required and increases the payload. Artificial intelligence plays an additional role in planning routes and selecting targets.
Russia’s size, traditionally viewed as a strategic advantage, becomes a vulnerability in this case. It is impossible to protect such a vast number of facilities with equal effectiveness at all times. Air defenses must be distributed among oil refineries, fuel depots, pipelines, military plants, energy facilities and major cities. As a result, Ukraine can strike infrastructure located far from the front line.
The campaign is also broader in scope. In addition to refineries, Ukrainian attacks are damaging fuel-storage tanks, pumping stations and pipeline infrastructure. This complicates not only production but also the movement of fuel that has already been produced. Kyiv is therefore targeting several links in the chain at once—refining, storage and transportation.
The political significance of this strategy became particularly clear in the dispute between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump. Trump repeatedly blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for rising global diesel prices and demanded that Kyiv halt the attacks. In one statement, he said that Ukraine was “about to get a new president” because Zelenskyy supposedly could not reach an agreement to end the war. Trump later announced what he called an “energy truce,” but did not specify which facilities or actions it would cover.
Zelenskyy responded that Ukraine was prepared to stop striking Russian oil facilities if Russia halted attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. “We are ready to stop strikes on Russian oil refineries if Russia stops striking our energy infrastructure,” he wrote. This wording reflects the central disagreement between the parties: Kyiv views an energy pause only as a reciprocal and verifiable arrangement, while Moscow and Washington, judging by their public statements, appear to be seeking to portray it as a more one-sided restriction on Ukraine’s campaign.
Against this backdrop, the continuation of attacks on Russia’s digital infrastructure was particularly significant. According to CBS News, a Ukrainian attack disabled a Yandex data center in Vladimir and became the third strike on company facilities in four days. The disruptions affected taxis, banking services, food delivery and other applications. Users in Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia were unable to order rides, contact drivers or access certain online services.
The BBC notes that Yandex considers its data centers critical to the normal operation of its services and warns that the time needed for restoration is difficult to predict. This differs from strikes on oil refineries only in the type of facility targeted, not in the logic of the impact. In both cases, the attack is aimed not at symbolically destroying the entire system, but at disabling a node on which numerous connected functions depend. An oil-refining unit affects fuel supplies, while a data center affects transportation, finance, logistics and everyday communications.
The shift from strikes on oil infrastructure to digital platforms demonstrates how the concept of “critical infrastructure” is expanding. In modern warfare, it includes not only power plants, railways and oil pipelines, but also server complexes, cloud platforms, ordering systems and digital tools that enable cities to function. Disabling a single large data center can have consequences far beyond the immediate site of the attack.
At the same time, this strategy carries significant risks for Ukraine. Strikes deep inside Russia may increase pressure on Moscow, but they also create the threat of retaliatory attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and complicate diplomatic negotiations. In addition, Washington is increasingly linking Ukraine’s military tactics to domestic economic problems in the United States, particularly diesel prices. Even if the causes of price increases are far more complex and include global energy crises, the political interpretation turns long-range strikes into a subject of conflict between Kyiv and its main ally.
Trump’s decision to ease restrictions on imports of Russian diesel fuel, discussed in The Washington Post article and the CBS News report, intensifies this contradiction. On the one hand, the U.S. administration is seeking to lower domestic prices and bring about an end to attacks on energy facilities. On the other, purchases of Russian fuel provide Moscow with revenue that may support its military capabilities. From Kyiv’s perspective, this looks like an attempt to reduce the war’s economic consequences for the United States by limiting Ukraine’s tools for pressuring Russia.
The main conclusion is that Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure have become effective not because they destroy large numbers of facilities as such, but because they precisely target vulnerable components while combining strikes, intelligence, mass drone production and the saturation of air defenses. The campaign is moving the war into the realm of economic attrition: Kyiv is trying to make the restoration of Russia’s military and civilian systems more expensive, slower and less predictable.
At the same time, the sources’ data do not imply the automatic collapse of the Russian economy or oil industry. Russia retains substantial natural resources, production capabilities and the ability to redistribute fuel between regions. Damaged facilities can be repaired, and some losses may be offset by importing equipment through third countries. But the regularity of the attacks narrows the scope for normal recovery and forces the state to spend more on security, repairs, reserve capacity and logistics.
The so-called “energy truce” therefore remains not only a diplomatic formula but also a test of whether the war can move from the mutual destruction of infrastructure toward controlled de-escalation. Zelenskyy’s position implies reciprocity: Ukraine will halt its strikes in response to a corresponding cessation of Russian attacks. Trump’s position, judging by his statements, focuses primarily on ending Ukraine’s campaign. Until these approaches converge, refineries and digital centers will remain not only military targets but also instruments of political bargaining.
The key trend is that long-range drone strikes are changing the very structure of the war. Relatively inexpensive aircraft, supported by intelligence and software, can attack costly and difficult-to-replace elements of infrastructure. This creates an asymmetry: defense requires the protection of a vast number of facilities and the constant expenditure of expensive missiles, while the attacking side can use mass-produced and comparatively cheap systems. As a result, economic resilience is becoming as important as resilience at the front, and ceasefire negotiations inevitably include questions involving fuel, servers, logistics and energy networks.
