Since early 2024, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has begun a new and dramatic chapter—one no longer focused solely on trench battles or artillery exchanges, but ever more influenced by Ukraine’s expanding employment of drones and missiles to target deep within Russian terrain. These are not indiscriminate attacks. They’re targeted, deliberate strikes on oil refineries, storage depots, and transport infrastructure—the critical arteries that keep Russia’s military machines humming. The shift is not only a change in strategy but a revolution in the way contemporary wars are being fought and perceived.
Ukraine’s strategy has transformed with unprecedented alacrity. At the beginning of the conflict, its long-range bombardments were largely limited to locations close to the front lines. Tight controls on Western-provided arms prevented Kyiv from bombarding too deeply into Russian lands. But as months passed and sanctions did little to seriously reduce Russia’s oil revenues, Ukraine evolved. Based on drones and missiles produced domestically, engineers and military strategists started designing systems that could travel hundreds—and even more than a thousand—kilometers to hit targets. Abruptly, Ukraine could physically target the infrastructure sustaining Moscow’s war effort, not only its logistics in the field.
By early 2025, the dimensions of these attacks were imposing. During just the initial three months of the year, Ukrainian drones are said to have struck more than 80 oil installations throughout Russia. The analysts estimated that about 10 percent of the nation’s overall refining capacity had been removed from service. The raids ranged far and wide—from the refineries and pumping stations to the fuel depots and ports—reaching all the way to cities as far away as Moscow, Engels, and Izhevsk, more than a thousand kilometers behind the front.
The consequences were instantaneous. From September 2024 to February 2025, the losses from such raids were put at around 60 billion rubles (approximately $714 million). Perhaps the most poignant hit was in Feodosia, Crimea, when a Ukrainian attack destroyed 11 fuel tanks with approximately 70,000 cubic meters of fuel, incurring billions of rubles worth of losses. Every successful raid further stretched Russia’s fuel production and transport infrastructure, sending a ripple effect through its economy.
These interruptions compelled refineries to reduce activity. Gasoline and diesel production fell, increasing local fuel prices. Refining plummeted more than 12 percent—its lowest point in more than a decade. Moscow reacted by suspending the publication of fuel production figures and temporarily prohibiting exports to calm local prices.
Still, the economic harm was not as ruinous as predicted by most. Russia’s processing capacity is still over double its internal need, giving it room to make up the losses. Even when 10–15 percent of processing facilities are not running, the nation can supply local fuel requirements, sometimes aided by Belarus. The bulk of the economic pain is borne by oil companies themselves, who have to pay for repairs and lost production, while the Russian government is mostly insulated. The hit to refined exports is partly balanced by continued crude oil sales abroad, though at lower profit margins.
Militarily, the attacks have prompted Moscow to reconsider its defense. Defending a huge network of refineries, warehouses, and infrastructure facilities in such a vast nation is no easy matter. Some have used air defenses such as Pantsir and anti-drone netting at some facilities, but most remain open to attack. With close to 40 major refineries and dozens of smaller ones scattered throughout Russia, defending all of them at once is an impossible task.
The technology behind Ukraine’s drone war has been every bit as revolutionary. Improvements in GPS guidance, satellite-linked commands, and the availability of commercial satellite imagery have enabled engineers to create low-cost, high-precision drones that can fly hundreds of kilometers and strike targets with stunning accuracy. These small, cheap weapons have been able to cause millions in damage—evidence that the calculation between cost and effect on the battlefield has been revolutionized. And aside from the material cost, these strikes have brought the war home to Russian cities, jolting public confidence and showing just how far the front lines extend.
Both sides are adapting in real time. Russia has stepped up its own long-range strikes against Ukrainian energy and industrial targets, aiming to destroy power plants and refineries. The boundary between war and civilian infrastructure is ever more blurred as both countries seek to undercut the other’s war economies. For Ukraine, increasing domestic production of drones and missiles—frequently aided by Western money and technical assistance—has become a pillar of its defense strategy, as concerns mount about future foreign military aid.
Around the world, the effects of this new warfare are being followed closely. The United States and its allies have sometimes pressed Ukraine to steer clear of specific energy targets within Russia, fearing possible oil market instability or undesired escalation. But to Kyiv, these deep strikes are one of the only means of imposing real costs on Russia’s war effort—attacking not merely tanks or trenches, but the money and industrial backbone that supports them.
In some ways, Ukraine’s drone war is a case study on the transformation of warfare in the 21st century. It demonstrates how a smaller state, with technology and creativity, can punch above its weight when it is up against a more powerful adversary. The front lines of the war are no longer geographically determined; they extend to industrialized cities, supply lines, and even the world economy. For historians and military strategists, the question is no longer simply about the physical destruction caused but about how such tactics are rewriting the very rules of contemporary conflict, deterrence, and resilience in an age where technology has emerged as the great leveler.