Forbes: Russia Will Have To Sacrifice Airbases And Ports

To protect refineries,

Ukraine has developed 15 types of long-range attack drones and threw them against the Russian oil industry. According to Forbes, during the year of such raids, Ukrainian intelligence reduced the capacity of Russian oil refineries by about 12%.

According to the publication, Kyiv expects that oil raids will undermine Moscow's finances, complicate military logistics and sow discontent among ordinary Russians. However, experts warn that such strikes, although painful for the Russian Federation and affect logistics, do not have a significant impact on the total annual production volume.

“Perhaps more importantly for the Ukrainian forces, the drone attacks could force the Kremlin to pull precious air-defence systems from the front line and redeploy them around oil infrastructure,” the newspaper writes.

Forbes notes that desperately trying to strengthen its air defence, Moscow recently postponed – from 2024 to 2026 – the export of two batteries of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems in New Delhi and, according to British intelligence, plans are already being developed to deploy the Pantsir air defence system around energy facilities.

“By strengthening the protection of oil refineries, the Russians can agree to less protection around air bases, ports, headquarters and other military facilities, which will make them an easier target,” Forbes writes.

Russia disperses and thins its best air defences, and the consequences of this are demonstrated by the Ukrainian missile attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, as a result of which two landing ships of the Russian Federation were damaged.

“For the Kremlin, a choice might be imminent: protect refineries or protect front-line forces. It might be impossible to do both,” Forbes noted.