Ukraine launched massive drone assaults against Russia this week, hitting key oil infrastructure and signaling Kyiv intends to block the Kremlin from increasing diesel exports in defiance of President Donald Trump.
More than 1,000 Ukrainian drones targeted Russia on Sunday alone 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.
Kyiv has ended its brief adherence to an energy ceasefire that Trump declared between Ukraine and Russia on Oct. 11. Moscow ignored that truce from the start and Kyiv vowed to retaliate.
Ukraine's drone strikes have achieved a scale, range and effectiveness that they have 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.
As a result, Trump's deal with Putin to boost Russian diesel exports is likely dead in the water, said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Kpler. "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," Smith said.