How Ukraine’s UAV delivered a deadly blow to Russia’s oil and gas lifeline

In mid-March, a Ukrainian drone crashed into Rosneft’s Ryazan oil refinery, located 500 km from the border with Ukraine. By April 2, the raid distance doubled, when the UAV factory and Russian oil and gas facility in the Republic of Tatarstan, more than 1,100 km from the border, were attacked by UAVs.

These increasingly distant raids show that Kiev has found a way to overcome Moscow’s air defense network and complex electronic warfare system, allowing its explosive-carrying UAVs to deliver lethal blows to Russia. Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure, the economic lifeline that brings the country’s largest source of revenue.

A source close to Ukraine’s UAV program said that the vehicles participating in the raid have a longer range, higher capacity, and even use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to guide, making them useless. enhance Russia’s jamming capabilities.

“Each UAV has a computer containing satellite and terrain data, and we and our allies determine the flight direction before attacking,” the source explained. “The AI ​​guidance mechanism is activated when the enemy causes interference to help the UAV attack the target with meter-by-meter accuracy.”

UAVs are equipped with a series of sensors and use “machine sense”, a form of AI, explained expert Noah Sylvia of the UK’s Royal Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI). The operator will build a machine learning model on the UAV’s chip, teaching it how to determine the location, terrain and target it is aiming for.

“When deployed, the UAV will be able to determine where it is,” said Sylvia. “It does not require any communication with satellites and flies completely autonomously.” This makes jamming or electronic warfare intervention measures ineffective.

Chris Lincoln-Jones, an expert in AI and UAV warfare, commented that the vehicle’s self-pathfinding technology is still at a low level. “This level of autonomous flying has never been seen before on a UAV, but we are in the early stages of that potential technology,” Lincoln-Jones said.

Ukraine has relied heavily on UAVs and drones since the war with Russia broke out in February 2022, and has focused its efforts on developing technology to be able to domestically manufacture this type of vehicle.

Ukraine initially used UAVs and drones for reconnaissance or modified them to drop small-caliber bullets, then built a complete industry to somewhat have an advantage over Russia with larger and better resources. This is the reason why Ukrainian UAVs have increasingly higher accuracy, clearly shown in raids on Russian oil and gas facilities.

Some experts say that instead of attacking fuel depots, Ukraine is targeting distillation towers, which process crude oil and turn it into fuel or other derivatives. These are areas that are more complicated and more difficult to replace with Russia.

“We see that some of these targets are complexes that need a lot of Western technology and Russia is having difficulty buying them,” said Sylvia.

This tactic helps Ukraine cause more damage to Russia instead of random attacks. Experts say such raids could have a greater impact on the Russian economy than existing Western sanctions.

“The vast majority of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia so far have ignored the energy sector,” said Helima Croft, managing director and head of global commodity strategy at the investment bank. RBC, review. “Exporting energy, crude oil, gas and refined products helps Russia sustain its economy to continue hostilities.”

Ukraine claims Russia has lost 12% of its total oil refining capacity. Russian officials admitted that their oil refining capacity had decreased and banned gasoline exports to avoid increasing domestic fuel prices.

“The past weeks have shown that Russia’s wartime economy has vulnerabilities that we can attack with our weapons,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared. “UAVs are our long-range strike capability. Ukraine will now always have an air strike force.”

A series of raids targeting Russian oil refineries in Ukraine caused global oil prices to increase, with Brent crude oil prices increasing nearly 13% this year. This makes American politicians concerned about the potential economic impact of the above raids during an important election year.

While not mentioning energy prices, US officials said they were actively persuading Ukraine not to attack Russian oil refineries. “We have long said we do not encourage or facilitate raids inside Russian territory,” a US official affirmed.

Croft said the US and Western sanctions imposed on Russia since the outbreak of hostilities were designed to maintain the country’s energy supply on the market.

“That’s the deal between the US and Ukraine: We will pump you with money and weapons, but leave Russia’s export and energy facilities alone, because we don’t want a major energy crisis to happen.” , Croft explains.

However, the military aid package worth more than $60 billion stuck in the US Congress has caused the flow of weapons to Ukraine to almost stagnate for many months. “If it does not receive weapons and money as promised, what is the incentive for Ukraine to comply with the agreement?”, Croft said.

Experts say the bigger concern is that Ukraine is not stopping at oil refineries. According to RBC, some of the largest oil export ports in Russia, which support the export of two-thirds of the country’s crude oil and petroleum products, are all within range of attack by Ukrainian UAVs.

“If a major export facility is attacked, the impact on the market will be significant,” Croft warned. “Many of these facilities are located next to Russian oil refineries and this seems to be the next target.”

Ukrainian officials acknowledged US concerns, but vowed to continue the raids. Vasyl Maliuk, leader of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), announced that they will not stop attacking to “cut off the oxygen source” from Russian oil.