Ukraine steps up deep strikes on Russian energy grid, exposing Moscow’s rear vulnerability
Ukrainian drones and unmanned units have reportedly hit major oil refineries in Ufa and multiple military and energy assets across occupied Crimea, while a key thermal plant there burns and large areas lose power. The strikes push the war deeper into Russia’s industrial heart and turn energy infrastructure on both sides into an explicit front line.
Ukraine is widening the war into Russia’s energy and logistics heartland with a new wave of deep strikes on oil refineries and power infrastructure, challenging Moscow’s claim that its rear areas are insulated from sustained pressure. On 25 June, Ukrainian drones were reported to have hit two large refineries in the Russian city of Ufa, while Kyiv’s unmanned forces announced strikes on radar installations, power plants and fuel sites across occupied Crimea, where a major thermal power plant in Kerch is already burning and much of the peninsula has lost electricity.
Open‑source analysis attributed the Ufa strikes to Ukrainian long‑range drones, identifying fires at the ELOU‑AVT‑6 unit of the Bashneft‑UNPZ refinery and the AVT‑4 unit of the Bashneft‑Ufaneftekhim plant. Together, those units have a combined crude processing capacity of around 10.5 million tonnes per year, making them a significant node in Russia’s oil refining system. Russian authorities have not publicly acknowledged Ukrainian responsibility, but visuals from the scenes show flames and smoke rising from refinery installations — a familiar pattern in previous Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy sites.
In Crimea, Ukraine’s newly formed Unmanned Systems Forces reported a coordinated series of strikes on what they described as military and energy targets across the occupied peninsula. Claimed hits included MR‑231 and Neva‑B coastal radar stations, the Tavriiska thermal power plant, substations in Sevastopol and Simferopol, an oil depot in Dzhankoi, two gas compressor stations and an anti‑aircraft gun position. While full damage assessments are still emerging, separate reports from Russian‑installed authorities acknowledged a major incident at the Kamysh‑Burunskaya thermal power plant in Kerch and widespread outages, with estimates that up to half of occupied Crimea had temporarily lost power due to what was described as an “accident in the electrical grid.”
For civilians in Crimea, the practical effect is immediate: blackouts interrupt water supplies, communications and medical services, while fires at power plants and fuel depots raise fears of secondary explosions or toxic smoke. In Ufa and surrounding parts of Bashkortostan, refinery workers and nearby communities are suddenly on the front line of a conflict that Moscow has often portrayed as distant. Even if casualties remain limited, the sense that industrial sites deep inside Russia are vulnerable to Ukraine’s drones chips away at the perception of safety.
Operationally, the strikes fit into Kyiv’s campaign to degrade Russia’s ability to sustain its war, targeting refining capacity, fuel logistics and air‑defense and radar systems that protect the Black Sea Fleet and occupied territory. Successive hits on energy assets force Russia to reroute fuel supplies to both its military and civilian sectors, potentially raising costs and complicating operations from the front lines in southern Ukraine to naval deployments around Crimea. In turn, Moscow has intensified its own attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and fuel infrastructure, with new Russian drone strikes on petrol stations and fuel storage sites reported on 25 June in Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and near Zaporizhzhia.
The mutual targeting of energy systems is transforming the war into an attritional contest over who can better absorb infrastructure damage. Ukraine’s prime minister has warned that more than 10 gigawatts of generation capacity will need to be restored before winter and another 3 gigawatts of decentralized power created to keep the lights on under Russian attack. Russia, for its part, must now defend refineries and power plants that were never designed for sustained drone warfare, stretching its air‑defense resources over vast territory.
Strategically, every successful strike on Russia’s refining network reverberates in global markets, even if immediate price effects are muted. Russia is a major exporter of refined products, and persistent disruptions could force it to adjust export volumes or domestic allocations, with knock‑on effects for European and Asian buyers who still depend on Russian fuel flows, directly or indirectly. At the same time, Ukraine’s willingness to hit targets deep inside Russia keeps pressure on Western governments that have supplied Kyiv with weapons but sometimes urged restraint in their use.
Turning power plants and refineries into battlefields is a reminder that in modern war, the grid and the fuel network are as much targets as tanks. The next indicators to watch will be the duration of power outages in Crimea, Russia’s ability to restore the damaged Ufa units, any visible rerouting of fuel logistics to the southern front, and whether Ukraine attempts further long‑range strikes on additional Russian energy hubs.
Sources
- OSINT