Ukraine launched massive drone assaults against Russia this week, hitting key oil infrastructure in one of the largest attacks this year, according to state media reports. The strikes set ablaze an oil export terminal in St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city and President Vladimir Putin's hometown.
Ukraine has ended its brief adherence to an energy ceasefire that President Trump declared on Oct. 11. Moscow ignored that truce from the start and Kyiv vowed to retaliate.
The attacks have achieved a scale, range and effectiveness that has crippled Russia's diesel exports, said Tatiana Mitrova, an expert on the Russian oil industry at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. Before the attacks, Russia was the second-largest diesel supplier in the world after the U.S.
Data from open-source intelligence firm Rochan Consulting shows Kyiv's strikes on Russian refineries and related oil infrastructure almost tripled to 31 in July compared to 11 in January. The attacks slashed Russia's diesel exports by more than 75 percent, to 141,000 barrels per day (bpd) in September, compared to 608,000 bpd in the same period last year, according to data from Kpler.
In response, Moscow banned exports in July to preserve domestic supplies. The Kremlin resumed shipments this month to fulfill the Trump-Putin deal. Under that deal, the Kremlin agreed to supply the global market with about 75,000 bpd in October and 124,000 bpd in November.
But those volumes are a fraction of total demand, Mitrova said. The Ukrainians are regularly launching swarms of drones numbering in the hundreds, compared to dozens earlier in the war, and are striking deeper into Russian territory. In July, Kyiv hit Russia's largest refinery at Omsk in Siberia, more than 1,000 miles from Ukraine.
Ukraine has also learned to target more complex refinery equipment that is harder to repair, Mitrova said. A destroyed fuel tank takes just a couple weeks to fix, but replacing a secondary refining unit requires supply chains outside Russia.
"You cannot just order it on Alibaba," Mitrova said. "You need to make your order in advance and therefore securing this equipment quickly is not possible."
With midterm elections less than two weeks away, President Trump has blamed Ukraine for surging diesel prices. Nationally, diesel cost $6.32 per gallon on average Tuesday, nearly 75 percent above the same period last year, according to AAA. However, the diesel market was already under pressure due to Trump's decision to go to war with Iran in late February, which disrupted fuel exports from the Middle East.
Global diesel exports have fallen about 1 million bpd due to lost supplies from Russia and the Middle East, said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Kpler. The International Energy Agency warned this month that diesel supplies will likely remain constrained well into 2027.
Trump's options to reduce fuel prices are limited. U.S. refiners are already working at maximum capacity to fill the gap as much as possible. "The diesel tightness is likely going to persist in the coming months and prices are going to remain elevated," Smith said.
As a result, Trump's deal with Putin to boost Russian diesel exports is likely dead, Smith said. "It seems unlikely that they'll be able to bring the volume of diesel back to the market that they are talking about without an energy ceasefire."