Kiev claims to have struck the Saratov refinery, causing explosions and fires. The objective: to put pressure on Russia’s energy infrastructure and its war effort.
Summary
Kiev continues its long-range drone attacks on targets in Russia. On the night of September 15-16, 2025, Ukrainian sources claimed responsibility for a strike on the Saratov refinery, about 600 km (370 miles) from Ukraine, causing explosions and fires. The facility is owned by Rosneft and has a nominal capacity of 7.0 million tons per year, with an actual throughput of approximately 4.8 million tons in 2023. This action is part of a strategy targeting refining capacity and fuel logistics in order to weaken the Russian war economy. The vectors used combine long-range drones, inertial navigation, and visual guidance, in swarms designed to overwhelm enemy air defenses and electronic warfare. Available data indicate unit shutdowns, fires, and occasional shortages, as well as a warning from Transneft about possible reductions in delivery. However, overall effectiveness depends on the speed of repairs, stocks, and the dispersion of strikes over time.
Reported facts and verifiable elements
On the night of September 15-16, 2025, the Ukrainian military command reported targeting the Saratov refinery, causing explosions and a fire on site. Ukrainian and international media outlets relayed images of the fire and reports of explosions. The targeted site is an oil hub in the middle Volga region, about 600 km (370 miles) from the front line. The facility, operated by Rosneft, has a designated processing capacity of 7.0 Mt/year, while the volume processed in 2023 reached 4.8 Mt according to public sources. Already in August, a previous raid had led to a suspension of operations, highlighting the vulnerability of the primary ELOU-AVT units and conversion blocks (visbreaking, isomerization). The resumption of activity depends on the recommissioning of pipelines, compressors, furnaces, and safety systems, which often takes weeks.
The reason behind a campaign targeting energy
The strategic logic is twofold. On the one hand, to disrupt the supply of military fuels (aviation kerosene, diesel), some of which comes from refineries in western Russia. On the other hand, it targets a sector that contributes between 30% and 50% of federal budget revenues, depending on the period, through taxes, export duties, and dividends. By striking key sites—refineries (Ryazan, Kirishi, Saratov), depots, and terminals (Primorsk, Ust-Luga)— — Kiev is seeking a cumulative effect: shutdown of critical units, logistical congestion, increased insurance costs, and defensive Russian arbitrage at the expense of other priorities. This approach complements the sanctions by targeting not the downstream commercial sector, but the upstream-downstream industrial capacity that processes and ships petroleum products.
How: vectors, trajectories, and modes of operation
The strikes rely on long-range attack drones, powered by piston or jet engines depending on the model, programmed by waypoints and supported by inertial navigation (INS), hardened GPS/GLONASS, and sometimes terminal visual guidance. Among the vectors cited in the open literature, the Bober/UJ-25 has a range of 600 to 1,000 km, with a warhead calibrated to penetrate process structures. The AQ-400 Scythe claims a strike radius of 750 km with a warhead of around 32 to 43 kg, a cruise speed of around 150 to 200 km/h, and a doctrine of use in mini-swarms with a “guide drone” and followers to saturate defense layers. Other Ukrainian platforms (UJ-22, Morok, derivative variants) complete the arsenal, with reduced radar profiles and low-altitude approach profiles. Attacks often combine several approaches, a night sequence, and a delay to sustainably engage local air defenses.
Neutralization and its limitations on the Russian side
Russia claims to have shot down numerous drones, with debris sometimes causing secondary fires on site. The response involves GNSS jamming, temporary mobile network outages, reinforcement of point air defense (Pantsir-S1), and air combat patrols. On the industrial side, operators prioritize the protection of primary units (atmospheric and vacuum distillation) and sensitive reactors (isomerization, reforming), as their unavailability leads to cascading shutdowns. Nevertheless, perfect defense is costly and rare on a network of sites scattered over several hundred kilometers. The density of the facilities, their interdependence with pipelines, and the need to maintain constant flows limit the ability to “bunkerize” the entire network.
Visible effects: shutdowns, trade-offs, and market signals
Since August, repeated attacks on refineries and terminals have led, according to industry sources, to the shutdown of up to approximately 17% of Russian refining capacity at certain peaks, or nearly 1.1 million barrels per day. Several sites have reduced or even temporarily suspended their critical units. Increased unavailability and the high demand season have caused regional tensions over gasoline, with a partial freeze on gasoline exports decided at the end of July. At the same time, pipeline operator Transneft has warned producers of possible constraints on storage and acceptance of crude oil in the event of further damage. On the markets, the price signal remains moderate but noticeable, with Brent rising in mid-September due to capacity interruptions and geopolitical risks.
Saratov’s place in Russia’s energy architecture
Saratov processes Urals and Orenburg crude; its products—gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, bitumen, vacuum gas oil, sulfur—are shipped by rail and road, with river access depending on the season. In 2023, throughput of around 4.8 Mt indicates utilization below its nominal capacity (7.0 Mt), reflecting maintenance cycles and product optimization. Toucher Saratov does not have the impact of a giant refinery like Kirishi (approximately 17.7 Mt/year, 355,000 b/d), but repeated shutdowns create a ripple effect: rerouting of flows, queues on pipelines, blending arbitrage, and tension on gasoline components.
Real efficiency: what the figures and technology show
The central question is “does it work?” Three indicators converge. First, aggregate unavailability: up to 17-20% of primary capacity offline at times, a record level since the start of the drone war. Second, political and logistical trade-offs: warnings from Transneft, temporary restrictions on gasoline exports, delays in restarting operations. Finally, the effects on price and availability: local premiums, reversal of certain flows towards crude exports rather than refined downstream products, and postponed or improvised maintenance. Technically, striking ELOU-AVT units, furnaces, or critical tanks requires inspections, non-destructive testing, and specific spare parts; these operations take time, and just a handful of bottlenecks are enough to disrupt an entire chain.
Risks of escalation and possible countermeasures
On the Russian side, the most effective response will combine target discrimination (protection of vital units), redundancy (buffer tanks, bypasses), physical hardening (nets, debris screens, light shelters), and close active defense. On the Ukrainian side, the expected trajectory involves ramping up domestic drone production, improving visual navigation algorithms (route/terrain correlation), using more fuel-efficient engines, and integrating payloads adapted to industrial structures. The cost/effect ratio remains favorable if a vehicle costing a few tens of thousands of euros can shut down a unit generating losses of millions of euros per day.
A strategic perspective over time
Kiev’s low-signature air campaign is not aimed at a single “sledgehammer blow,” but at the methodical attrition of Russia’s oil supply chain. Repetition counts more than spectacle. If Moscow repairs, Kiev returns; if Moscow reinforces a site, Kiev shifts its efforts to another. The test now will be Russia’s industrial resilience as winter approaches and Ukraine’s ability to maintain a sustained pace of varied strikes from multiple axes and on complementary nodes. The energy front has become a theater in its own right, where innovation, logistics, and the ability to absorb shocks will matter as much as the number of drones deployed.
War Wings Daily is an independant magazine.