Deep strike campaign

Deep strike campaign
Part of the Russo-Ukrainian War
Fire at the Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya, photographed from Moscow's Brateevo district on 18 June 2026, following a Ukrainian strike
Date 2024 – present (2 years) Location Russian Federation Result Ongoing
Belligerents
Ukraine	Russia
Commanders and leaders
Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Commander-in-Chief) Oleksandr Syrskyi (Commander-in-Chief, Armed Forces of Ukraine until 21 July 2026) Mykhailo Drapatyi (Commander-in-Chief, Armed Forces of Ukraine from 21 July 2026) Robert "Madyar" Brovdi (Commander, Unmanned Systems Forces)	Vladimir Putin (Commander-in-Chief) Andrei Belousov (Minister of Defence)
Units involved
Ukrainian Armed Forces Unmanned Systems Forces Long-Range Strike Command (established 10 July 2026)	Russian Armed Forces Russian Aerospace Forces (air defence)
Strength
~200–300 long-range drones launched per night (June 2026) 2,359 deep-strike missions in June 2026, targeting sites 500–2,000 km behind the front line

The deep strike campaign, or long-range strike campaign, dubbed long range sanctions, is a military campaign by the Defence Forces of Ukraine against the logistics of the Russian Federation and the Russian Armed Forces. The campaign involves long-range drone strikes and missile strikes inside Russia, mainly targeting the oil industry and the arms industry. The goal is to undermine Russia's economic ability to continue waging its war against Ukraine. It is part of a broader wave of Ukrainian attacks inside Russia in response to the 2022 invasion.

Overview

"Deep strike" refers to the range of 200 to 1500+ kilometres, for which specialised deep-strike or long-range one-way attack drones have been developed by Ukraine, especially unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as:

• AN-196 Liutyi – Ukrainian long-range UAV
• Fire Point FP-1 – Ukrainian long-range one-way attack drone
• UJ-25 Skyline – Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle
• UJ-26 Bober (drone) – Ukrainian long-range UAV
• Peklo – Ukrainian loitering munition

Certain cruise missiles built by Ukraine or supplied by Ukraine's allies also take part in the deep strike campaign. Although these tend to be much more expensive, and easier to intercept, they carry larger warheads and thus present a greater threat to potential Russian targets:

• FP-5 Flamingo – Ukrainian cruise missile
• R-360 Neptune – Ukrainian family of cruise missiles
• Storm Shadow – Franco-British cruise missile

There are also several types of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) deployed by the Ukrainian Navy and Ukrainian Marine Corps on the Black Sea against Russia's Black Sea Fleet:

• MAGURA V5 – Ukrainian unmanned boat
• Sea Baby – Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicle

Objectives

The primary targets of Ukraine's deep strike campaign have been the petroleum industry in Russia and military assets of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as ports and airports. The export of hydrocarbons, mostly oil and gas, has been the Russian government's main source of revenue used for military spending on the war. A secondary objective has been to put pressure on the civilian population of Russia (also called "bringing the war back to Russia"), which through a mixture of acquiescence and participation keeps enabling the Kremlin's military aggression against Ukraine. On 8 October 2026, after another successful drone strike on the Omsk refinery, one of Russia's largest oil refineries, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated: "The destruction of such facilities is the exercise by Ukraine of its inalienable right to self-defence in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and is aimed at reducing the military-economic potential of the Russian Federation".

History

In 2025

A substantial increase in targeted attacks by Ukraine on Russian energy infrastructure began in the second half of 2025. According to media reports, Ukraine carried out over a dozen drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure between 2 and 24 August, the majority of them striking facilities in Ryazan Oblast and Volgograd Oblast in southwestern Russia. On 27 August, Ukrainian media reported that the Ryazan refinery, one of the main fuel arteries to Moscow, had been struck by a powerful explosion. Boris Aronstein, an independent oil and gas analyst, said that the Ukrainian drone strikes had caused "the most severe crisis in recent years", adding that the size, coordination and repeated waves of the drones makes Russia unable to repair the refineries before the next attack occurs. According to Reuters, Crimea and Russia's far east were the first territories to experience gasoline shortages in August.

2025–2026 Ukrainian strikes
on Russia's oil industry

700km
435miles

26

Yug Rusi

25

Krasnodar

24

Ilsky

23

Kuibyshev        

22

Afipsky

21

Antipinsky

20

Ust-
Luga

19

Novorossiysk
terminals (3)

18

Tikhoretsk pump

17

Novoil

16

Slavyansk                  

15

Saratov

14

            Ufimsky

13

Novokuibyshevsk

12

TANECO  

11

          Syzran

10

Tuapse terminal

9

Tuapse refinery

8

Moscow

7

    Perm

6

Volgograd

5

Yaroslavl

4

Kstovo

3

Ryazan

2

    Kinef

1

Omsk

   

⬤ Oil refinery

⬤ Other oil infrastructure

In September 2025, Reuters reported that Russia was seeing certain fuel grade shortages, with the reduced refinery runs caused by the drone attacks and high borrowing costs leading to private filling stations being unable to stockpile fuel according to retailers and traders. According to Reuters, the attacks on some days had reduced Russian oil refining by almost a fifth, and cut exports from key ports. According to five retailers and traders in the Russian fuel market during September, problems from the shortages started to emerge in the Volga river region and in southern and central Russia as well. On 29 September, Forbes reported that the issues with fuel had worsened quickly and spread across much of the country, with rising prices, rationing, long queues and pumps running dry in some cases.

In October 2025, BBC Verify and BBC Russian reported that Ukrainian drone attacks reached a record level of 14 refineries targeted in August, while eight had been targeted in September and 12 in August, and that 21 out of Russia's 38 large refineries had been hit since January 2025. Meduza reported that some gas stations were shutting down altogether due to being unable to raise prices because of antitrust restrictions. In Crimea, Russian occupation officials limited gasoline sales to 20 liters per customer and imposed price caps.

List of oil industry facilities in Russia hit by Ukrainian strikes

Oil refineries, oil terminals and other oil industrial infrastructure in Russia, struck by Ukrainian attacks since 2025, ranked by refining or transloading capacity. The distance from Ukrainian-controlled territory is indicated in kilometres.

Impact

On 4 July 2026, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine estimated 42.74% of Russia's oil refining capacity had been disabled at that time, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) said "more than 20%" of capacity has been knocked offline. Finnish President Alexander Stubb stated in early July 2026 that Russia's capacity to produce and export oil had been reduced by 40% due to the Ukrainian mid- and long-range drone strikes. The Financial Times reported that Russia produced 4.1 million barrels of oil per day in June 2026 (28% below the 5-year average, and 35% below design capacity); the fuel shortage had so far affected 50 million people (35% of the Russian Federation's population); and by 9 July the majority of regions of Russia had local authorities or retailers imposing fuel sales restrictions.

Exiled Russian energy expert Mikhail Krutikhin [ru] concluded in mid-July 2026: "I think some of the oil capacity of Russia has been lost forever, because of the closure of the [oil] wells right now. Russia is not going to recover, even five years after the war." Around the same time, Radio Svoboda reported based on recent satellite imagery that Russia was withdrawing most of its remaining S-300 and S-400 air defence systems from the Arctic Far North (especially Novaya Zemlya and Severodvinsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast) in order to protect its oil refineries (such as the Saratov refinery, where air defence systems appeared to have been moved between May 2023 and August 2025) and Moscow to the southwest from Ukrainian drone strikes. The remaining stockpile of these types of air defence missiles was reportedly also diminishing due to being outproduced by Ukrainian drone manufacturing, as well as direct strikes on air defence launchers, although the remaining volume was unknown, and Ukrainian officials cautioned that Russia had some other systems left. More generally, OSINT analysts concluded that c. 60% of Russia's air defence systems had been moved from the locations they were stationed in before Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

According to Russian Forbes, 54% of all oil refineries had been damaged by August 2026. In July 2026, Russia's daily petrol output declined to 75,000~80,000 tonnes, even though domestic summer demand was 115,000~120,000 tonnes a day, meaning Russia had a daily oil refining capacity deficit of c. 35%.

Notes

References

External links

• "Ukrainian Strikes Map: Deep & Mid-Range Russia Hits | ArmyInform". ArmyInform.com.ua. Defence Forces of Ukraine. Retrieved 11 July 2026. – incomplete map of claimed middle and deep strikes on targets in the Russian Federation by the Defence Forces of Ukraine