Russia’s losses from Ukrainian strikes on refineries may reach billions — energy expert

He spoke about this on Espreso TV.

“The damage that has already occurred is certainly extremely unpleasant for the Russians. They stopped exporting oil products a long time ago, and now they are even forced to close oil export terminals from time to time because of strikes by Ukrainian drones. In fact, we are moving step by step to make it as difficult as possible for the European part of Russia, which is on our side of the Urals, to supply oil products. It is unlikely that we will be able to knock out all their refining capacities, especially those beyond the Urals, because it is just physically too far away,” he said. 

Oleksandr Kharchenko noted that the Russians are already feeling extremely uncomfortable in the part of the country where their refineries are suffering. According to him, the enemy is forced to reorganize its logistics “in order to transport oil products from the Urals to the European part, which has probably never happened before.”

Therefore, the director of the Center for Energy Studies considers these strikes to be very effective.

“At the moment we are talking to you, these losses are definitely hundreds of millions of dollars. It is possible to sit down and assess each strike on a map and draw up a general picture, because there are two types of losses. First, they are losing equipment itself, and this is equipment that costs tens of millions of dollars in each case. And it is very difficult for them to buy it, they have to overpay, they are under sanctions, it is difficult and time-consuming to buy it through third parties,” he said.

According to Oleksandr Kharchenko, every day, every hour of downtime of the Russian oil refining facilities is also a loss.

“So it is certain that the total accounting is in the hundreds of millions. I won't say the exact figure right now, it requires some additional research. But if we continue like this, I think it will reach billions in a month and a half,” the expert added.

• On the night of January 31, units of Ukraine's UAV Forces and the Main Intelligence Directorate, in coordination with other branches of the Defense Forces, struck Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka LLC in Russia's Volgograd region.
• On January 31, it was reported that Russia had suspended oil transit through the port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea due to a drone attack on a pumping station.