Putin's key demand is designed to inflict maximum damage on Ukraine

Yahoo

19-03-2025

Volodymyr Zelensky had just touched down in Kyiv after being told by Donald Trump that Ukraine 'doesn't have any cards' when the explosion happened.
In the city of Ufa, 700 miles east of Moscow and more than 1,000 miles away from Kyiv, Mr Zelensky's drone unit struck further into Russian territory than ever before.
The Ufimsky oil refinery – one of Russia's largest – burst into flames that burned so bright that they could be seen above the city's skyline for hours. Locals thought there had been an earthquake.
Russia has been hit by dozens of similar attacks on its oil refineries and power plants. They are the reason why Vladimir Putin's first ceasefire demand is to make them stop.
In recent months, Russian troops have gained momentum on the ground to such an extent that Putin said they were advancing along 'practically the entire front line'.
But the rate at which Ukraine is attacking Russia on its home turf has also accelerated rapidly since the start of 2025.
Credit: X/ @Osinttechnical/ Reuters
The attacks are a way for Ukraine to slow down the Russian army's push by targeting the fuel depots which feed jets, tanks and planes.
But they also reflect another aim of Ukraine: the desire to 'bring the war home' to Putin and the Russian people – who hear little of the battlefield difficulties hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
That may explain, in part, why after a call with the US president on Tuesday, Putin was willing to agree to a partial ceasefire with Ukraine, covering strikes on energy infrastructure, while continuing to push along the front line.
The Telegraph has collected data on every reported refinery attack since the start of the full-scale invasion – checked by experts – showing that 19 attacks have happened so far this year already, compared with 25 during the entirety of 2024.
On Jan 11, a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire at the Taneco refinery in the city of Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan. It was the second time in a year that the facility, located some 800 miles away from Ukraine, had been hit by Kyiv's forces.
Livia Gallarati, a senior oil markets analyst at Energy Aspects, said there had been a tangible impact on the volume of crude oil being processed by Russian refineries as a result.
'Some of the sites that we know have been attacked and we've been able to corroborate that they are very big, important refineries,' she told The Telegraph.
'And we have seen a meaningful decline in Russian refinery runs – before the attacks, they were refining around 5.6, 5.5 million barrels per day. Now we're down to around 5.1 million barrels per day. So there's definitely been an impact on runs.'
Questions remain as to whether the proposed halt in energy attacks will happen. Both Ukraine and Russia claimed on Wednesday morning that their facilities had been targeted, even after the phone call between Mr Trump and Putin.
Ukraine had certainly been planning for more. Mr Zelensky revealed on Monday that his forces had successfully tested a long-range drone capable of travelling 1,800 miles.
Kyiv had set a target to produce one million drones in 2024. Mr Zelensky said they ended up making more than 2.2 million. This year, he has set a target of 4.5 million – all made inside Ukraine.
Credit: X/@front_ukrainian
And while the drones may be more capable and sophisticated, Kyiv has also shown a creative streak with its attacks against Russia.
In the dark of night in late January, the 14th regiment of the Ukrainian army launched a major attack on Russia's Novozybkov oil pumping station, near the border with Belarus.Their weapon of choice was an E-300 SkyRanger light aircraft modified into a drone equipped with a 100kg payload, precision bombing capabilities and, an onboard remote control system.
Pictures of the attack showed a FAB-250 high-explosive bomb mounted on a similar light aircraft, alongside a 120mm mortar shell, showing the scale of the weapons.
Militarnyi, a Ukrainian military analyst group, said the aircraft was equipped with one large bomb and two smaller munitions 'visually resembling artillery shells'.
The remotely controlled light aircraft was designed to return to Ukraine after delivering its payload. It is unclear whether it managed to do so, but the impact of the attack did not go unnoticed.
'Local residents reported loud explosions in the sky and the destruction of several aerial targets,' reported Shot, a Russian Telegram channel.
As well as impacting crude oil production at important refineries, such attacks bring attention to the war to Russians who are perhaps being fed disinformation by the government but cannot ignore large fires burning in their local area, according to Emily Ferris, a senior analyst at Rusi.'These attacks demonstrate Ukraine's geographical reach across Russia and psychologically, it brings the war home,' she told The Telegraph.
So far, Moscow has struggled to defend its oil facilities because most of its resources are on the front line, according to analysts at Defence Express.
The result is that flows to Europe have been affected.
Just last week, Hungary saw its oil supplies from Russia temporarily suspended after the Ukrainian military said it targeted the Druzhba pipeline in western Russia's Oryol region.
The Novozybkov oil pumping station, which has been repeatedly targeted, is connected to the Druzhba pipeline.
It is highly valuable to Russia as it provides a critical route for exporting large volumes of crude oil across Europe, including to Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany.
'It's not that Ukraine can't [have a major impact], it's just that Russia is part of the global hydrocarbon economy. It is still plugged in in a lot of ways and European countries are still receiving flows from Russia,' Ms Ferris told The Telegraph.
'If you massively disrupt that, then it has implications for oil prices across the world. And the Ukrainians are very cautious of not doing that. They have a threshold for what they can really do without having global implications.'
The attacks are also intended to have an effect on the Russian military.
The Taneco refinery, attacked by Ukraine multiple times, can refine 16 million tons of oil every year and plays a key role in supplying fuel to the Russian army.
Ukraine also forced the suspension of operations at an oil refinery in Ryazan, 300 miles from the Ukrainian border, which produces fuel for jets, tanks, aircraft and ships.
The increasing number of attacks on Russian soil came at a time when Mr Trump pledged to start peace negotiations, with Kyiv wanting to show it still held some leverage.
But there's no doubt a 30-day moratorium on striking each other's energy infrastructure will also come as a relief in Kyiv.
Russia's attacks against Ukraine's energy infrastructure mean Kyiv's capacity is now at around a third of what it was at the beginning of 2022.
Millions of people face disruption to power, heating, and water supply due to these attacks, which intensify during the winter.
On Tuesday night, hours after Putin concluded his call with Mr Trump, Russian forces conducted an air strike on energy infrastructure in Sloviansk, a city of 100,000 people in the Donetsk region, leaving part of the city without electricity.
Ukraine reportedly responded with a drone attack at Russia's Krasnodar Krai oil station, damaging a pipeline connecting storage tanks and sparking a large blaze, according to regional authorities.
With little hope of a reversal in fortunes on the ground, nullifying Ukraine's ability to strike Putin where it hurts the most will make the fight even harder.
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