Ukrainian drone strikes in early 2024 disabled 14% of Russia's oil refining capacity and led to an increase in domestic fuel prices. The intelligence agency of the Pentagon reports, whose data the agency cites Bloomberg.
The loss of some of Russia's refining capacity led to a 20%-30% increase in domestic prices by mid-March and prompted a halt in exports to focus on meeting domestic demand. This is stated in the assessment of the intelligence department of the US Department of Defense, which was summarized in the report of Inspector General Robert Storch, who oversees aid to Ukraine.
"To mitigate the impact of these strikes, Russia banned gasoline exports for six months starting in March and began importing petroleum products from Belarus that it had planned to import from Kazakhstan, and prioritized the shipment of petroleum products by Russian railways over other modes of transportation."
Although Ukraine's attacks on oil refineries in the Russian Federation are aimed at depleting fuel supplies and export revenues for Putin's armed forces, the US has criticized them as posing a risk to global oil prices.
The published analysis covers only a two-month period - from the first attack on January 21 at the PJSC Novatek plant in Ust-Luz to the March 24 attack on the power plant in Novocherkassk.
At the same time, attacks on energy facilities "led to minor interruptions in the power supply of the Russian military and the civilian population," as "Russia has powerful generating capacity - the third largest in the world - and a high degree of redundancy in its network," the assessment says.
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