Ukraine hones strikes on Russian energy sector 

Intel li gence-led raids deep in enemy ter rit ory tar get crit ical ‘nodes’ that are hard to repair 

Financial Times UK 30 Jul 2026 CHRISTOPHER MILLER Ukraine has shif ted its long-range drone cam paign against Rus sia’s energy industry from broad attacks on refiner ies to more tar geted strikes on crit ical com pon ents that are hard to replace. Ukrain ian mil it ary plan ners, drone oper at ors and energy spe cial ists say Kyiv’s goal is no longer simply to start fires at refiner ies or des troy stor age tanks but to keep plants offl ine for longer and make each strike more costly for Moscow. One Ukrain ian deep-strike unit mem ber told the FT the strategy was “tar geted and co-ordin ated”. Pres id ent Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week end that he had instruc ted Ukraine’s newly appoin ted com mander-in-chief and act ing defence min is ter to expand the coun try’s deep-strike cam paign. Yevhenii Khmara, the incom ing defence min is ter, said he had worked with the new top com mander Mykhailo Drapatyi on plans to “move the war on to the aggressor’s ter rit ory as much as pos sible”. “Ukraine will con tinue to exert shock and tech no lo gical pres sure on Rus sia by all means,” Khmara said. “We must scale up what is already effect ive,” he added, spe cific ally not ing Ukraine’s deep-strike attacks. Two deep-strike drone oper at ors said tar get selec tion was guided by detailed tech nical ana lysis by offi cials. They take into account logist ics, flight paths and broader oper a tional pri or it ies. They said drone units received briefi ngs from energy engineers and industry experts on which com pon ents are indis pens able to refinery oper a tions and which would take the longest to replace. The engin eers and experts tell drone units to strike “these pipelines here, or this chim ney, hit here in this space, or this part of the equip ment con nec tion, or this box, and so on”, one drone oper ator said. He added some oper a tions still involved attacks on large oil depots, where muni tions with frag ment a tion ele ments are used. Rus sia and Ukraine inher ited sim ilar Soviet-designed energy sys tems, giv ing Ukrain ian engin eers a detailed under stand ing of many indus trial pro cesses, equip ment lay outs and oper a tional vul ner ab il it ies in Rus sian facil it ies. “Sadly we learn from Rus si ans,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former defence min is ter and chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies, a Kyiv-based secur ity think-tank. “They are doing exactly the same to us here,” he added, refer ring to Rus sia’s mis sile and drone strikes on Ukrain ian energy, mil it ary and civil ian infra struc ture. Mis sions are planned with mul tiple object ives and con tin gency options. If oper at ors can not reach the primary tar get because of air defences or nav ig a tion prob lems, they are instruc ted to divert to pre-selec ted sec ond ary or ter tiary tar gets rather than aban don the strike. Robert Brovdi, com mander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Sys tems Forces, said refinery attacks formed part of a broader cam paign to dis mantle net works that sus tain Rus sia’s war effort — from oil exports that fin ance the mil it ary to logist ics routes sup ply ing troops. “The object ive is clear: one, to des troy the sources that fin ance Putin’s war [oil trade]; and two, [to des troy] the mil it ary-indus trial com plex that sup plies the occupy ing army with weapons,” he said. The strategy reflects what mil it ary plan ners describe as “sys temic war fare” — treat ing Rus sia’s energy infra struc ture as an inter con nec ted net work rather than a col lec tion of indi vidual tar gets. “We think of Rus sia as a sys tem,” said Zagorodnyuk. “Under stand ing that sys tem allows you to identify the crit ical parts where the effect is much more sub stan tial.” By map ping depend en cies across refiner ies, sub sta tions and trans mis sion sys tems, Ukrain ian plan ners identify nodes where a rel at ively small war head can cause dis rup tion far bey ond the ini tial blast. Ukrain ian drone units have also begun repeatedly strik ing the same crit ical equip ment before repairs are com plete, accord ing to drone oper at ives and an FT ana lysis of satel lite images.

 Ukrain ian offi cials said intel li gence provided by the US and France had helped map air defences and identify routes allow ing drones to evade them and reach tar gets deep inside Rus sia. Brovdi said the cam paign also depended on the “sys tem atic elim in a tion” of Rus sian air-defence, radar and elec tronic war fare sys tems to open cor ridors for drones deep inside Rus sia. From there, he said, tar get ing became “a mat ter of pure math em at ics”: pro duc tion volumes, domestic con sump tion, export flows and ship ment points. He added that Rus sia’s European ter rit ory, as well as occu pied areas of Ukraine, were now in range. “Eighty mil lion people — roughly two-thirds of Rus sia’s pop u la tion — live in the European part of the coun try, within the strike zone, which is no longer and will no longer be con sidered Rus sia’s safe rear area,” he said. US and French intel li gence had also improved tar get selec tion, help ing Kyiv “learn where to hit”, accord ing to Zagorodnyuk. He said Ukrain ian plan ners had built a detailed map of Rus sia’s energy grid, allow ing them to identify crit ical nodes where dis rup tion can shut down lar ger parts of the sys tem. Brovdi said: “The escal a tion of strikes, up to the com plete destruc tion of the enemy’s fuel and energy sec tor and mil it ary-indus trial com plex, is inev it able.”