In recent months, Russia and Ukraine have intensified the war of deep strategic strikes using drones and missiles. The belligerents have entered a new operational phase which is no longer limited to a few dozen kilometers on either side of the front line.
In March, Russian forces launched more than 3,000 air and drone strikes in Ukraine, compared to 2,712 in February. Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory have exceeded 1,400, distributed in around twenty regions, some located thousands of kilometers away. Moscow launched more than 6,500 long-range drones and 141 missiles during the month of April, an increase of 2% compared to March, including a large number of strikes during the day. According to kyiv, 88% of drones and missiles were intercepted. In both camps, this sustained increase in the intensity of strikes is continuous and not occasional. (1).
The Russian air strategy has several components: mass nighttime drone attacks to saturate air defenses and find vulnerabilities, associated at the same time with missile attacks aimed at logistical and energy infrastructures. In 54 months of war, Russia has fired (excluding drones) around 5,800 guided missiles at Ukraine. These missiles, modernized since 2022, incorporate electronic countermeasures, thermal decoys and reprogrammed flight profiles, which has reduced the interception rates of the Ukrainian defense.
For its part, Ukraine has chosen to put aside attacks against military targets located in border regions in favor of strikes directly targeting Russia’s sources of export revenue. Thus, at the end of March, after a campaign of systematic destruction of Russian air defense systems, Ukrainian drones and missiles hit oil infrastructure. This was the case for the main oil terminals in Primorsk and Ust-Luga, as well as a refinery in Kirishi (located around 800 km from the Ukrainian border) in the Leningrad region.
These blows temporarily disrupted about 40% of Russia’s crude oil export capacity. kyiv seeks to drastically reduce Russia’s revenues intended to finance the war. This is all the more necessary as the war against Iran and the temporary exemptions granted by the United States on Russian oil exports have increased Moscow’s revenues.
At least 12 oil infrastructures were hit in April and, of around 2,500 oil tanks in the European part of Russia, almost 300 have already been destroyed or damaged. Thus, in May, production at Russian refineries was at its lowest level in seventeen years due to the Ukrainian attacks. kyiv’s major and current goal is to disrupt the supply chains of this key sector of the Russian economy, the real nerve of the Kremlin’s war budget. Especially since the war of long-range strikes is becoming a decisive operational axis in its own right.
(1) To maintain its current level of intercepting Russian attacks, Ukraine needs around 4,800 surface-to-air missiles per year, according to experts. This figure far exceeds the current capacities of Western transfers. Additionally, the United States used a considerable amount of its precision munitions during the operation Epic Fury against Iran in just a few weeks. Currently, according to Norwegian experts, Russia has a larger, more diverse and more difficult arsenal of missiles than on the first day of the invasion in 2022.
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