How Ukraine’s audacious drone campaign sparked a fuel crisis 3,500km behind enemy lines
The explosion was so powerful that it sent the huge disc-shaped lid of an oil storage tank flying high above the city on a cushion of black smoke and flame.
Ukrainian drones cut through the Russian air defences last week to strike an oil refinery in Moscow for the second time in three days, amid Kyiv’s largest ever attack on the capital.
The footage quickly travelled around the world as proof of Kyiv’s poise and ability to bring the war in Ukraine back to Vladimir Putin’s doorstep.
The Ukrainians have intensified strikes on refineries, depots and supply routes in recent months, having learned to overwhelm Russia’s defences with a growing arsenal of cutting-edge long-range drones.
Their successes have created debilitating shortages across Russia, from occupied Crimea to the eastern expanses of Siberia, giving Kyiv the upper hand as both sides weigh restarting peace talks.
The Independent looks at how Ukraine has mastered its long-range capabilites to devastating effect.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence said in 2022 that it had the ability to hit targets some 630km away – about the distance between Kyiv and Tula. This year, it says its long-range weapons are destroying targets “at about a distance of 1,750km”.
That evolution has been years in the making. On the frontlines, Ukraine and Russia have been moving in step to adopt and develop drones capable of delivering payloads of explosives several kilometres away without risk to the operator.
Russia went into the war with a long-range advantage, hosting stockpiles of ballistic missiles and access to long-range Shahed drones as early as summer 2022. Those Iranian-made drones can travel up to 2,000km with a 50kg warhead.
That advantage gave Moscow the ability to thrash morale in Ukraine’s major cities, destroy warehouses full of munitions, and devastate energy infrastructure deep behind enemy lines.
But when its allies were hesitant to provide long-range weapons to hit back, Ukraine invested in its home-grown industry, learning from its experiences. That industry is maturing, and Ukraine is now advising in allies on how to fight a modern war.
Fire Point, maker of the FP-1 attack drone and the Flamingo cruise missile, is now planning to develop a European missile defence system. And the Pentagon is said to be considering buying Ukrainian drones and Electronic Warfare systems.
Read world affairs editor Sam Kiley’s dispatch from Ukraine on the start-up weapons industry – where homegrown missiles and drones are made from carbon printers and lawnmower engines – rising from the ashes.
According to the Baker Institute, a Texas-based think tank, Ukraine lacked the drone and missile capabilities for “sustained, long-range strikes” deep in Russia as late as 2025.
