Ukraine's drone strikes cut Russian refining to a record low, but repairs limit the gain
Ukraine's strikes have put more of Russia's refining capacity out of action than at any earlier point in the war, and measured quarterly output has fallen by more than a fifth. What the record does not settle is how long the damage lasts, because refineries have shown both quick repairs and lasting decline.
Putin acknowledged that Ukraine's refinery strikes achieved their goal partially: "Did they achieve their goal? Partially, because, by our estimates, we lost about 1 percent of GDP," Putin said.
The strikes themselves can be counted. A geospatial analysis expert cited by the Washington Post confirmed visible damage from 57 strikes on Russian refineries between April 1 and August 31 of this year.
Tango, a drone battalion commander in Ukraine's 1st Separate Center of Unmanned Systems, said Ukrainian forces target the most important parts of refineries so that they stop and do not recover.
The question is how much of Russia's refining capacity the strikes have put out of action, and how long it stays out. In August, the Polish research centre OSW reported that Russian petrol prices had risen by about 50 percent since the start of 2025, with the steepest increases over the summer. What is not yet known is whether the hit to refining has cut what Russia earns from oil exports. The KSE Institute estimates that total exports of crude and oil products rose by 390 kb/d, to 7.7 mb/d, with higher crude volumes only partly offset by falling product exports.
The OIES count from 2024
In March 2024, the OIES estimated that Ukrainian strikes cut Russian crude processing by an average of 380 kb/d, roughly 6 percent of the country's refining capacity at the time.
The Washington Post found that more than a third of 54 strikes examined appeared to hit secondary processing units, which turn distilled crude into gasoline, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas. The same analysis found that half of Russia's total refining capacity was offline at the end of August 2026, more than twice the share knocked out in late 2025.
OPEC reported in September that Russian refining in the third quarter fell by more than 23 percent from the second quarter, to 3.95 million barrels a day. It attributed the fall to Ukrainian attacks and unscheduled repairs.
The Russian government moved to protect the domestic market. It stopped exports of gasoline and diesel and allowed imports of fuel of a lower ecological class.
Carnegie finds the judgment holds
Carnegie judged that this remained true in the current campaign.
Kyiv's own figures do not agree with one another. On 21 September, the Ukrainian General Staff claimed the campaign had sharply reduced Russian output of Euro-5, the highest ecological grade of motor fuel, and put more than 45 percent of refining capacity offline. Fire Point, a Ukrainian drone and missile maker, put the offline share at about 14 percent and judged that the 45 percent most plausibly counts every unit hit, including repaired ones.
The IZA study recorded verified direct hits at 22 of 29 large Russian refineries between June 2022 and May 2026. The same satellite product applied to 106 other deep-strike targets showed no comparable contraction in the IZA study, which weighs against reading the decline as generic war disruption.
Costs without drastic effects
In June 2024, the Carnegie Endowment judged that the attacks had imposed some costs on Russia but no drastic game-changing effects, similar to a production cut under the OPEC+ deal.
That judgement held through the following year.
In March 2025, Michael Kofman, noting Carnegie's assessment, said the long-range strikes had shaping effects but were not decisive, and that expectations of a game-changing impact tended to exceed the observed results.
Energy Intelligence reported in January 2026 that Russia's jet fuel production rose 5.6 percent in 2025, to an average 263,000 barrels a day, despite the refinery outages caused by drone damage.
Losses larger than ever
The counts agree on one point. Ukraine's strikes have put more of Russia's refining capacity out of action than at any earlier point in the war, and measured quarterly refining has fallen by more than a fifth. The president's own estimate of the cost, about 1 percent of GDP, and the government's halt to fuel exports show Moscow treats the loss as real.
What the counts do not agree on is how long the loss lasts. Carnegie found in 2024 that damaged units at many refineries were running again after two or three weeks.
The evidence shows refineries do come back, and that some damage does not.
The next measurement comes with a date. OPEC's figures for the fourth quarter, due later this year, will show how much of the refining capacity reported offline at the end of August returns to service.
Over the same period, the Russian government's September halt to gasoline and diesel exports and its turn to lower-ecology imports will shape the winter heating season. Frontelligence, the researchers who verify the strikes, wrote in March that it was not yet possible to judge the campaign's economic effect.