Ukraine attacks on Russian oil refineries could prove the Biden administration is wrong

• Ukraine has targeted Russian oil refineries in recent months.
• The Biden administration criticized the strikes and warned of global energy price increases.
• However, some experts say Ukraine should continue the attacks. Here’s why.

Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian oil refineries in recent months in a bid to hit Russian export revenues and cut fuel supplies to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces.

In one of the latest attacks, Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Kaluga region and set it on fire, state news agency RIA reported on Friday, according to Reuters.

Ukraine also hit Gazprom’s Neftekhim Salavat oil refinery, one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, earlier this week, Radiy Khabirov, the head of Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan, said in a post on Telegram.

However, the Biden administration has previously criticized such tactics. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in April that they risk hurting global energy markets and urged Ukraine to shift its focus to military targets.

“These attacks could have a domino effect on the global energy situation,” Austin said. “Frankly, I think Ukraine is better served pursuing tactical and operational objectives that can have a direct impact on the current fight.”

However, some experts consider this criticism to be false.

Michael Liebreich, the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and Sam Winter-Levy, a doctoral student in political science at Princeton University, argued in a piece for Foreign Affairs magazine that Ukrainian strikes against Russian refineries would not lead to an increase in global energy prices.

The experts said Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries would only hinder Russia’s ability to convert its oil into refined products such as gasoline and would have no impact on the amount of oil it can extract or export.

“In fact, Russia will be forced to export more, not less, crude oil due to reduced domestic refining capacity, which will push global prices down rather than up,” they added.

And such attacks are likely to continue to impact those in Russia, where prices for refined products like gasoline or diesel are soaring — meaning Ukraine’s attacks achieve the goals of failed Western economic sanctions, they continued.

The West has tried to impose a series of sanctions on Russia to limit its energy revenues. The US and UK have banned Russian oil and gas, and G7 leaders have agreed to cap the price of Russian crude at $60 per barrel.

But Russia has largely managed to avoid such measures, with its deputy prime minister Alexander Novak saying in December last year that Russia had shifted almost all of its oil exports to China and India.

As Bloomberg reported, Russia’s oil revenues more than doubled in April compared to a year earlier, underscoring the company’s success in reorienting its operations.

According to the report, the country’s total oil and gas revenues this month amounted to 1.23 trillion rubles, an increase of almost 90% compared to April last year.

Reuters reported in April that Russia also appeared to be able to quickly repair some key refining plants hit by strikes in Ukraine, increasing affected capacity to about 10% from nearly 14% at the end of March, according to the agency’s calculations to reduce.

Since then, however, Ukraine has launched a series of new attacks on refinery sites, and it is still unclear how these have affected Russia’s repair efforts.