Media reports massive Ukrainian drone attack on Russian oil and arms industry

Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on dozens of targets in various Russian regions on Tuesday morning. According to some Ukrainian media this would involve more than two hundred drones that reached targets deep in Russia, such as the city of Kazan, more than 1,200 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.

Targets are said to have mainly been fuel depots, oil refineries and weapons and ammunition factories. Attacks were reported from the Bryansk, Voronezh, Tula, Tatarstan and Saratov regions. Flight restrictions were in effect at many airports in the regions involved on Tuesday.

The Russian Telegram channel Astra reported that the attack started around 6 a.m., Ukrainian time. A Gazprom liquefied gas (LNG) storage facility near Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, is said to have been hit. Military targets were said to be in Bryansk earlier in the night attacked with American Atacms missiles.

Russian authorities reported attacks on Tuesday morning on a gas warehouse and an oil depot near the cities of Saratov and Engels, separated by the Volga, some 600 kilometers east of the Ukrainian border. An ammunition depot is also said to have been hit at the important military airfield Engels-2, where according to Kyiv cruise missiles and glide bombs were stored. Local authorities reported heavy smoke development and closed many schools in the area.

Strategic oil depot

It was last week according to Ukrainian media the strategic oil depot at Engels-2 has also been hit by Ukrainian drones. The fire was not extinguished until Monday, almost six days after the attack. The strategic Tupolev bombers are supplied with fuel from the storage facility at Engels-2. These aircraft are often used for attacks on Ukraine.

According to the Ukrainian Armed Forces the attack on the Kristall oil tank at Engels-2 airfield was part of a “multi-day” operation, the aim of which is, among other things, to reduce “the strategic capacity of the enemy air force”. “We are doing our best to ensure that the Engels fire brigade, which had just extinguished the flames of the previous attack, is not left out of work during the increasingly difficult economic conditions in Russia.”

The frequency of Ukrainian drone attacks and the distance the unmanned projectiles can cover are increasing

Russian state media wrote on Tuesday afternoon on the authority of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow that Russian air defenses had intercepted six Atacms missiles and eight British Storm Shadow cruise missiles within 24 hours, both in the airspace above the Bryansk region and above the Black Sea. According to the Interfax news agency, the Kremlin announced that it would retaliate against the Ukrainian attacks.

Ukraine has been regularly bombarding Russia for two years with drones that the country has developed itself. But the frequency with which this happens, and the distances that the unmanned projectiles can bridge, are increasing. The targets chosen by the Ukrainian Air Force and the Security Service are usually military airfields, oil refineries, weapons factories and fuel depots.

Sand in the war machine

With the drone attacks deep into the Russian hinterland, Kyiv hopes to throw sand in the Kremlin’s war machine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said in recent years that he wants to bring the war, started by Moscow in early 2022 with a massive invasion, to Russia so that the Russian people also feel what the war means.

The latest wave of Ukrainian attacks comes a week before Donald Trump takes over the American presidency. Trump has said several times in recent months that he wants to end the war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours, although he has never provided details on how he plans to do that.

Moscow is also preparing for the changing of the guard in the White House. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference on Tuesday that Russia is ready to talk about security guarantees. According to the Kremlin, security guarantees for both Ukraine and Russia are an integral part of any form of agreement between the warring parties. “We are ready to talk about security guarantees for the country now called Ukraine,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov further expressed his approval of the fact that the Trump team now speaks of “the reality on the ground” when it comes to Ukraine. The Kremlin has used this terminology since the Russian occupation of parts of Ukraine to emphasize that Moscow has annexed those areas and has no intention of returning them.

Occupied a fifth of Ukraine

Russia currently occupies about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, including the entire Crimean peninsula and parts of the Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The front is still moving, especially in the eastern Donetsk region. To the west and northwest of the city of Donetsk, Russian units are still making daily progress on the battlefield, although at the cost of major losses. However, the Russians are increasingly succeeding in cutting off the access roads to and from the logistically important city of Pokrovsk.

According to the Institute for the Study of War This week, the Russians took control of two main roads from Pokrovsk: the T0504 road from Pokrovsk to the northeast, the cities of Kostjantynivka and Chasiv Yar, and the T0406 to the southwest. These roads were important to the Ukrainian armed forces for transporting troops and military equipment to the front line. The Russian advance threatens to encircle Pokrovsk.

The ongoing fighting around that largely destroyed city also has major consequences for the Ukrainian steel industry. The fighting is making the extraction of coal from the mines around Pokrovsk increasingly difficult. The coke produced from it is a crucial raw material for the steel industry.

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