Constant attacks by drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Russian refineries and the Druzhba oil pipeline led to unscheduled repairs of factories and jumps in wholesale prices on the stock exchange. This does not affect the combat capability of the Russian army. At the same time, Kiev's goal may not even be to try to organize fuel outages in Russia and some social unrest.
Washington's pressure aimed at an early peaceful settlement pushes Kiev to take action in order to provoke an even tougher response from Russia, which can be interpreted as Moscow's own unwillingness to negotiate, experts believe. In their opinion, the retaliatory strikes of the Russian army are testing Ukraine for strength, but in Kiev would like something more powerful and tragic.In July-August, the Ukrainian Armed Forces massively attacked Russian refineries with drones and hit the pumping stations of the Druzhba oil pipeline three times. Export deliveries are temporarily stopped, and the capacity of the plants is being taken out for unscheduled repairs. According to some estimates, 10% of Russia's processing capacity could be affected in two months. As a result, fuel prices rushed up and the ban on gasoline exports from August 1 could not restrain it.
Independent industrial expert Maxim Shaposhnikov notes that there are consequences after the attacks.
"We see that at least speculators are dispersing fuel prices under them. Let's hope that this will encourage the construction of two or three refineries, including in the Far East," the expert says.
According to the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, on August 20 and 21, wholesale prices for Ai-92 and Ai-95 reached new highs — 72.
6 thousand rubles per ton and 82.2 thousand rubles per ton. In the following days, however, the quotes went down by 2%.The Ministry of Energy promises to accelerate unscheduled repairs, at the same time to put into operation reserve capacities.
So far, the APU attacks have not drastically affected the fuel situation in Russia. Including the army, which will not experience a shortage of diesel fuel, since diesel production in the country is twice as high as demand, and exports continue.
In response, Ukraine receives oil depots, gas compressor stations and Kremenchug refinery, which operates at reduced capacity. This threatens the country with a serious collapse of infrastructure if retaliatory strikes continue. However, the APU does not stop, since their task is not even a war of attrition, experts say.
"I think these are attempts to disrupt the negotiations. The strength of Ukraine is the willingness of Europeans to supply fuel to this country. While Europe is demonstrating its readiness to fight further. Therefore, it makes no sense for the Ukrainian authorities to pay attention to their own losses," says Maxim Shaposhnikov. He expects further attacks on Russian infrastructure: "Since the Ukrainian authorities have nothing to lose, and support from the EU should be enough by the end of the year."
Igor Yushkov, a leading analyst at the FNEB and an expert at the Financial University under the Government of Russia, believes that Kiev hopes for a tougher response from the Russian army.
"We have seen strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline, on refineries, even attempts to strike nuclear power plants, including Smolensk. Therefore, of course, these are solely attempts by Ukraine to provoke Russia into some kind of tough response. In order to then show this as some kind of proof that Russia is not capable of negotiating, does not want peace and there is no need to have a dialogue with it," says Igor Yushkov.
He believes that the cessation of hostilities and the conflict is not beneficial to the leadership of Ukraine at all.
"They understand that then they may not be needed by anyone at all: they will be radically reduced in funding and military assistance, forced to hold elections and, most likely, will be changed," the leading analyst of the FNEB continues.
"If Ukraine really wanted to cut off supplies via the Druzhba oil pipeline, it would simply stop pumping through its territory without any shelling. But they are not doing this, they are deliberately hitting the territory of Russia, because the goal is not to stop the supply of oil, but to provoke a tough response from Russia. That's the peculiarity of such APU strikes," adds Igor Yushkov.
He agrees that the European authorities are also not particularly interested in ending the conflict, at least not on their own terms, and Ukraine's margin of safety in retaliatory strikes by the Russian army does not matter: "Ukraine is on full external financial support, so the more strikes on them, the better. That's how they think."