By Rostyslav Averchuk
Lviv (EFE).- Ukraine’s strategy that aims to push Russia into real negotiations gains new force as the long-range drone strikes against Russia’s oil sector have jumped in intensity and impact in the last few weeks.
According to initial estimates, Russia’s maritime exports of crude oil fell by up to 20% in April as a result of a series of Ukraine’s strikes against port terminals in the Black and Baltic seas, Andriy Klymenko, head of the monitoring group at Ukraine’s Institute for Black Sea Strategic Studies, told EFE.
The situation is dynamic, Klymenko warned, noting that Russia is trying to repair the damage and redirect oil flows across its territory to ports farther from Ukraine.
“No doubt, the Russian Federation suffered very significant losses,” Klymenko underlined.
Systemic pressure
Dozens of Ukraine’s strikes in the last few weeks have a systemic character, Klymenko noted, targeting the entire chain of facilities for processing and transporting Russian oil and petroleum products.
In particular, the attacks on oil refineries mean Russia cannot process the oil it cannot export through the damaged ports.
Since Russia lacks large oil storage facilities, the inability to export or process oil could eventually force it to decrease extraction, the KSE Institute, an analytical branch of Kyiv School of Economics, wrote, noting that this could lead to long-term damage to facilities.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s strikes have caused at least 7 billion dollars of losses to Russia so far in 2026.
It represents a significant, although at this point not a decisive, blow to Russia’s war effort, with Moscow expected to spend at least 190 billion dollars in 2026 on its invasion of Ukraine.
The KSE Institute estimates that if global oil prices, which have risen due to the war in the Middle East, remain high in the coming months, Russia’s oil export revenues could rise to at least 229 billion dollars in 2026, up from 158 billion dollars.
Eroding Moscow’s control
Russia’s oil revenues provide the foreign currency needed to purchase sanctioned goods for missile and other weapon production.
Oleksiy Melnyk, a former aide to the Minister of Defense and an international security analyst at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center, said that lower oil exports decrease Russia’s ability to launch daily attacks against Ukraine.
Ukraine’s attacks also disrupt the carefully maintained image of control as ever more Russians experience the impact of the war directly.
“Despite all the attempts at censorship, it is impossible to hide kilometer-long plumes of smoke and oil slicks at sea,” Melnyk underlined to EFE.
He noted that there is growing internal criticism in Russia regarding its inability to protect infrastructure across its vast territory. Many of the facilities, including the ports attacked in Dec. 2022, which account for 60% of maritime exports, are concentrated in the European part of Russia.
The range of Ukraine’s attacks has grown from 600 kilometers (372 miles) in Dec. 2022 to 1,750 kilometers (1,087 miles) in 2026.
Melnyk cautions that the strikes work together with other elements of the Ukrainian defense strategy.
Peace will come when Ukraine is protected reliably from Russian attacks, the Russian army loses its offensive potential, and the Russian economy crumbles under the pressure, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has noted.
Ukraine’s long-range strikes, coupled with international sanctions, could become “the last straw” that could push Russia to seek at least a temporary or limited ceasefire, Melnyk argued.
Russia will not abandon its “maniacal idea of destroying Ukraine,” the analyst said, yet the real threat of critical damage to its oil infrastructure could push Moscow to seriously consider at least ending its strikes against Ukraine’s energy system.
Further developments will depend “on how much the Russian Federation will be able to repair the refineries and port terminals and on how successful Ukrainian attacks are,” Klymenko, from the Institute for Black Sea Strategic Studies, also underlined to EFE. EFE
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