Volodymyr Fesenko: This Is A Fundamentally New Situation

Ukraine has been looking for Russia's Achilles' heel for a long time.

Successful Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have halted record volumes of oil refining in Russia. This has caused a fuel crisis like the country has never seen before. How does this affect sentiment in the Russian Federation? Will Ukrainian drone attacks stop the Kremlin?

About this, Charter97.org spoke to Vladimir Fesenko, a well-known Ukrainian political scientist and head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Research:

- I'll start by saying that I track the situation in the Russian Federation through various sources, but the best way to track the moods of Russians is by those inside. They feel them. We have a picture from the outside.

Nevertheless, what is happening with Russian oil refining is a fundamentally new situation, something that has never happened before. Ukraine has been looking for a weak spot in the Russian rear for a long time.

It is clear that the Russians have a big advantage in resources, in population and army, in many material resources, including financial ones. But it was very important for us to find some Achilles' heel of Russia, that place, strikes on which could weaken it, including its military strength, and influence the public mood. And at the same time, gradually, move it towards the need to start real peace talks.

The weak point has been found - it is oil refining, Russian refineries. Ukraine in recent months has demonstrated, firstly, a large number of precision strikes, and most importantly, serious consequences. The first attempts were made last year, but then we were restrained by the United States, so that it would not affect the global oil market, would not change the mood of American voters.

We had to listen, after all, the United States is our partner. Secondly, in the spring of this year, in March, an agreement was reached on a phased ceasefire. In particular, it was a question of ceasing fire at sea and stopping strikes on energy facilities. And for several months, the Ukrainian country complied with these informal agreements. When Russia began to violate, then the Ukrainian side began to respond. Therefore, precise strikes on Russian refineries is a trend that has been manifested since the summer.

The results of these months are very impressive. First of all, a significant decrease in oil refining, which in itself is a blow to the Russian economy. This also affects the ability to provide oil products to the Russian army, which is important.

Because the strikes are taking place in the rear regions, which are close to the front line, to the war zone. These strikes have led to gasoline shortages in at least 10 regions of the Russian Federation.

This is a completely new story. Russia, which is one of the largest oil producing countries, one of the leaders in the oil global market, is facing a gasoline shortage. This situation is affecting the mood of Russian citizens. According to the latest data, certain problems, including rising prices for petroleum products, are manifested even in the Moscow region. The wave is already reaching the main center of Russia. It is quite possible that the number of such regions will increase. Because Ukraine continues to hit Russian refineries.

Russia is now taking measures. They are trying to neutralize the Ukrainian strikes. But for now, this remains the main goal for Ukraine. This is a way of gradually forcing Russia to peace. Russia is used to forcing peace on its own terms. And now we are trying to force Russia to peace.

But real peace. There will be no quick result here. But the trend is obvious. So far we are talking about strikes with combat drones. If Russia hits Ukraine with missile weapons (it is missile strikes that are most effective), the Ukrainian side is forced to use only UAVs. But they are already flying at a very long distance: up to 2,000 kilometers beyond the Urals.

Russia still can't believe it. They suspect Kazakhstan and so on. They cannot recognize that Ukraine has made impressive progress in the development of air warfare technologies, combat drones.

The majority of strikes are carried out on regions in the European part of the Russian Federation, which are closer to the war zone, or strategically important - the largest Russian oil refineries. According to various data, the reduction in oil refining has been by a third. These are indicators that were not there before.

I should mention that the figures are different. There are no official statistics, but the very fact that a number of Russian regions are experiencing a shortage of gasoline, fuel prices are rising - these are indirect signs of the fuel crisis, which are the consequence of effective strikes on Russian refineries. For us, this is a form of asymmetric impact on the Russian Federation.

We once had a popular idea of striking Moscow. But the Russian capital has been under a very tight ring of air defense systems since the Soviet times.

But as practice has shown, many Russian military facilities, factories, oil refineries do not have such protection, which the Ukrainian side is using by hitting this weak point. In an asymmetric way, the AFU will inflict the greatest damage on Russia, weakening its potential to continue the war.

- Lukashenko supplies gasoline to Russia. How is it fraught for him?

- The situation with Lukashenko is more complicated, more contradictory. It is clear that in this case he shows how beneficial and important he is for Russia. That it is necessary to negotiate with him. We can be sure that he will try to get a lot more out of Putin in exchange for this help. This is not charity. It is also an element of political game on the part of Lukashenko.

With regard to Ukraine, our interest is that Belarus does not enter the war against us. Accordingly, Ukraine does not strike at the territory of Belarus. But we treat Lukashenko's actions in a natural way: he is Putin's ally. He bears his own responsibility for this war.

Ukraine can strike at logistics. Including the logistics of oil product supplies. There have already been such strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline. Something similar may happen in the future.

That is why our attitude to Lukashenko's actions is, of course, negative, we have known about his duplicity for a long time.

Americans now have an illusion that Lukashenko can be used in communication with Putin to stop the war in Ukraine. I think this is clearly an inadequate and inflated expectation. In Ukraine there are no such illusions about Lukashenko for a long time.

If Lukashenko is used, they press on various pain points, warning that the attempt to drag Belarus into the war against Ukraine will end very badly, first of all, for Lukashenko himself. And he realizes it.

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