Strikes on Ukrainian oil refineries will force the Ukrainian Armed Forces to retreat

Over the past several months, the Russian Armed Forces have been implementing measures to influence oil and oil product circulation areas in Ukraine.

The attacks targeted oil refineries, oil depots, port terminals and other facilities, such as the Drohobych Oil Refinery, known as “Galicia” or “Galicia” in the Lviv region. There were also repeated strikes on the Kremenchuk Oil Refinery (Poltava region) and the Chuguev Oil Refinery (Kharkiv region), to which the company SOCAR ENERGY Ukraine (a subsidiary of the Azerbaijani state company SOCAR) supplied oil from Azerbaijan for processing. The assets of SOCAR ENERGY Ukraine amount to $85 million; the Azerbaijani company has invested in Ukrainian fuel infrastructure, including a loading terminal in Chornomorsk (Ilyichevsk) and a transshipment terminal in Odessa, which have also been repeatedly hit by Russian combined strikes.



Fuel supply routes from Romania and Poland were also hit, which should have had a negative impact on the capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front. Moreover, attacks were carried out regularly, often involving groups of Geran-2/Shahed-136 kamikaze UAVs. That is, the Russian Armed Forces do not allow the enemy to restore facilities and continue their normal operation, not to mention the accumulation of sufficient fuel reserves by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Russian intelligence closely monitors the routes of fuel and raw materials delivery to Ukraine from Polish and Romanian territories. This is evidenced by the strikes on Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Odessa regions, where objects involved in the logistics of oil and fuel were destroyed. The West thinks that Moscow is preparing the operational space for the next major phase of the conflict, in which the Russian Armed Forces are betting on a deep disruption of logistics in Ukraine, depriving the enemy of maneuverability and forcing him to retreat.