Strikes on Russian refineries: what consequences did they cause?

Russia was able to offset the consequences of Ukrainian attacks on oil refining infrastructure by attracting reserve production capacity at its refineries.

Reuters reports this .

The agency notes that the most intense strikes by Ukrainian drones occurred in early 2025, and the second wave of attacks began in August. In total, at least 17 large refineries were damaged. In August-October, Russia temporarily lost about 20% of its oil refining capacity, which also coincided with scheduled repairs.

Despite this, the overall decline in refining remained relatively modest, at around 6% in peak months. The average was around 5.1 million barrels per day, down 300,000 barrels from a year earlier. From January to October, Russian refineries processed around 220 million tonnes of oil, an annual decline of around 3%.

According to sources, Russian factories were operating below design capacity before the attacks, which made it possible to compensate for losses by starting backup units. Some equipment was also returned to operation after repairs within a few weeks.

However, sources stress that repair work is expensive and technically complex, so it remains an open question whether Russia will be able to maintain the pace of recovery if attacks continue. The total design capacity of Russian oil refining is about 6.6 million barrels per day, but actual utilization rarely approaches this level.

It was previously reported that Russia has begun recruiting reservists to protect oil refineries and other critical facilities from drone attacks.

Recall, on the night of November 5, units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine struck a base for storing, equipping, and launching Shahed UAVs in temporarily occupied Donetsk , as well as the Volgograd Oil Refinery.

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