By Ian Lovett
Ukraine struck a major Russian oil refinery overnight, the latest in a series of drone attacks on energy infrastructure deep inside Russia, which Kyiv hopes will cripple Moscow's economy.
The attack on the Black Sea port city of Tuapse sent enormous plumes of toxic smoke into the air, prompting local Russian officials to warn residents to stay indoors with the windows closed due to "combustion products entering the atmosphere."
The Tuapse refinery had already been shut down since April 16 due to damage from a previous drone strike. Ukraine has also hit other key parts of Russia's vast oil-producing network over the past two months, including the Baltic Sea ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk, which collectively handle roughly 40% of the country's seaborne crude-oil exports.
Ukraine's military general staff wrote on Tuesday that Kyiv was targeting infrastructure "involved in supplying the Russian occupying army in Ukraine."
The strikes highlight Ukraine's growing ability to bring the war home to the Russian population -- a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to insulate most from the invasion. Tuapse, near Russia's border with the Caucasus country of Georgia, lies more than 300 miles from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled point -- a distance now well within the range of Kyiv's long-range attack drones.
The attacks also parallel Moscow's own campaign to decimate Ukraine's power grid, which left much of the population in dark, unheated apartments over the winter in an effort to sap the population's morale.
In Tuapse, black, oil-like drops have fallen from the sky in recent weeks. Oil has spilled into the Black Sea, creating slicks that cover several square miles of water. People living near the refinery were forced to evacuate Tuesday, while more than 100 emergency personnel worked to extinguish the blaze, according to local officials. Footage from the scene shows a fireball at the refinery, with thick smoke billowing out across the city.
Residents have posted videos on social media showing soot blanketing the city and complaining about the effects on the environment and their lives.
However, dealing a decisive blow to the Russian economy -- a goal which Ukraine's Defense Ministry laid out in a statement at the end of last month -- is far more difficult.
Sergey Vakulenko, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and an economist who formerly worked in the oil-and-gas industry, said Russian oil production dropped as a result of the strikes in late March and early April.
But it has since rebounded, he said. In addition, price increases due to the war in the Middle East meant that Russia's revenues from oil sales remained far higher than they were in February, before the war between the U.S. and Iran began and the Strait of Hormuz closed, gumming up oil exports from the Gulf.
Vakulenko said that Ukrainian strikes on ports and refineries could have an effect, but Kyiv would need to maintain a very high intensity of drone strikes on several key locations simultaneously.
"If they manage to keep the flow of drones at the same intensity as they had on Ust-Luga and expand it at Primorsk and Novorossiysk," a key Black Sea port, "then they could create a pretty substantial dent," Vakulenko said. "But it's a matter of how many drones they have at their disposal, " he said, adding they probably need four or five strikes for a fully successful attack, and most drones in each barrage are shot down.
Write to Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 28, 2026 14:29 ET (18:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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