Is Ukraine’s campaign of targeting Russian refineries working?

Is Ukraine’s campaign of targeting Russian refineries working? Fuel shortages in the country are unlikely to force Putin into concessions for peace. Long-range Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries have resulted in serious fuel shortages across the country. They compelled Moscow, a major hydrocarbon producer, to begin purchasing fuel abroad. Ukraine has also disrupted Russian supply routes north of the Sea of Azov, causing acute fuel shortages and blackouts in the occupied Crimean peninsula. The attacks have generated spectacular videos of refineries on fire and clickbait headlines claiming that “Russia is losing”. But what they have failed to achieve so far is changing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculus. After a long silence, Putin recently admitted that the strikes were indeed painful for Russia. But rather than moderating his conditions for a peace settlement, as Ukraine and its allies hoped he would, he staged a show of defiance and performative confidence. In a statement issued on June 23, he made clear he has not stepped back from his demands. He wants the peace treaty to be based on the framework agreement Ukraine and Russia developed during the Istanbul talks in the spring of 2022, a few months into Russia’s all-out aggression. These included Ukraine’s neutrality and a cap on the size of its military, among other conditions. But there are additional demands that have piled up over the four and a half years of war. This is what Putin refers to as “reality on the ground”, which stands for all the land Russia has occupied so far. Moscow wants to keep it. And on top of that, he is adding another euphemism: “Anchorage modality”, a reference to the frameworks surrounding the inconclusive Alaska summit between Putin and US President Donald Trump in August 2025. What it stands for is the Russian demand presented at the summit – that Ukraine must withdraw from the parts of the Donbas region which it still controls. Finally, Putin has ominously extended his territorial demands beyond Donbas to what he calls Novorossiya – a vague geographical term derived from the name of the province that existed in imperial Russia on the territory of today’s southern Ukraine. The vagueness is probably intentional: interpretations may range from the maximalist goal of capturing the port city of Odesa to a modest, but still painful one for Ukraine – demanding that Kyiv withdraw from the unoccupied part of Zaporizhia region, in addition to the Donbas. Putin’s decision to double down on his demands likely rests on the fact that the situation in the country remains relatively stable. For all the dramatic visuals of burning refineries and queues at gasoline stations, most Russians have seen worse in their lifetimes. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the country witnessed nationwide political upheaval, which was followed by two wars in Chechnya and multiple bloody terror attacks like the Dubrovka theatre and Beslan school sieges. In terms of economic hardship, the vast majority of Russians are still enjoying a lifestyle comparable with that of poorer European Union countries and contrasting sharply with what they endured throughout the 1990s. Most importantly, their war experience is aeons apart from that of the Ukrainians – who have been exposed to far more brutal Russian aerial strikes, wintering in unheated apartments and dodging violent conscription gangs hunting for men in the streets of Ukrainian towns and villages. Ukraine itself is the best illustration of what a post-Soviet country can endure without challenging the government in mass protests or army mutinies. Russia itself deployed the same tactics of targeting refineries against Ukraine early on in the war. The Ukrainians adapted, so, too, will the Russians. Fuel shortages create pain, but Russian oil and gas production remains intact. It serves as a backbone of the economy, ensuring the country’s ability to wage war while adapting to challenges posed by Ukraine and the Western alliance. As a March paper on the prospects of Russian oil production by the US think tank, the Carnegie Center asserts, Russia’s challenges are “well within the Kremlin’s and the oil industry’s ability to cope with headwinds and adversity” over the next three to five years, which are critical for winning the war. In the months following the paper’s publication, Russia filled up its coffers with billions of extra petrodollars, thanks to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran. It is now in an even better position. Ukraine, on the other hand, is entirely dependent on Western aid, which it finds harder and harder to obtain. After losing its main funder, the United States, it is now existentially reliant on European governments – especially the British, French and German – which themselves are coming under strong pressure from the far right to stop financing Ukraine. Last week, Zelenskyy announced a 40-day “influence operation”, meaning more drone strikes, to coerce Russia into agreeing to settle the conflict on conditions more favourable to Ukraine. But Russia is not turning the other cheek. It has embarked on a campaign of its own to knock out petrol stations on the left bank of the Dnipro River to suffocate supplies for the Ukrainian army and civilians. Ukraine and its Western allies may come up with another surprise move that could cause much pain to Russia. But there is a fair chance that Zelenskyy’s 40-day campaign will see mixed results and the big picture may not radically change from the one we are observing today. The most crucial success that Ukraine has failed to achieve yet is stopping the Russian ground offensive. While Western media is trumpeting Moscow’s anticipated defeat, Russian troops are busy finalising the capture of Kostiantynivka, the first in a chain of industrial cities that form the northern Donbas agglomeration, the main prize of the current stage of the war. It is apparent from official and expert Russian commentary that Russia sees the Ukrainian drone campaign primarily as a PR surge aimed at convincing US President Donald Trump to restart support for Ukraine. Like many longtime Ukraine watchers, the Russians also have an acute sense of deja vu – similar PR surges accompanied Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive in 2023 and the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. The trajectory of this conflict so far suggests that the current surge could easily result in more hair-raising escalation that may motivate the Kremlin to raise the price of peace. In the end, Ukraine may not gain much, apart from more suffering and losses. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.