DEEP DIVE – By any traditional definition, the city of Ryazan doesn’t belong on a list of battlegrounds in the Ukraine war. There are no Ukrainian soldiers or tanks deployed there, and it’s in western Russia, roughly 600 miles from the active front lines of Pokrovsk or Kupiansk.

But residents and officials in Ryazan – population 550,000 – wouldn’t be surprised to find their city on such a list. Ukraine has attacked Ryazan at least a half dozen times, as part of an escalating drone-and-missile campaign against Russia’s oil sector. Most recently, an oil refinery in Ryazan – Russia’s fourth-largest – was forced to shut down after an Oct. 23 attack by Ukrainian drones.

Ryazan is hardly alone.

Lt. Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, head of the Ukrainian Security Service, said last week that Ukraine has carried out more than 160 successful attacks on Russian refineries and other energy targets this year; an Open Source Centre investigation identified more than 90 strikes between Aug. 2 and Oct. 14. In the last week alone, Ukraine has struck an oil terminal and tanker in Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse; energy facilities in Russia's Oryol, Vladimir, and Yaroslavl regions; and the Koltsevoy, or “ring,” pipeline, which links refineries in Moscow, Ryazan, and Nizhny Novgorod, and supplies fuel to the Russian military. Earlier strikes damaged one of Russia's biggest oil refineries near St. Petersburg, and perhaps most impressive – from the Ukrainian point of view – the campaign has reached as far as the Siberian city of Tyumen, some 1200 miles east of Moscow.

Stretching the conventional notion of front lines is clearly part of the Ukrainian strategy; the strikes have forced the Kremlin to worry about drone and missile attacks across a broad swath of Russian territory. But the main aim is to hurt the Russian oil sector – the country’s richest revenue source, and a key reason why the Kremlin has been able to maintain the funding of its war machine.

“Ukraine’s theory of victory now includes destroying Russia’s energy sector,” Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe, told The Cipher Brief. “They’ve developed capabilities that can reach great distances with precision, exposing Russia’s vulnerability – its inability to protect critical infrastructure across its vast landscape.”

Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to intensify the pace and scope of the campaign. “We must work every day to weaken the Russians. Their money for the war comes from oil refining,” Zelensky said in an Oct. 27 address to the nation. “The most effective sanctions - the ones that work the fastest - are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots.”

Zelensky also noted that 90 percent of the strikes have been carried out by Ukrainian-made drones and missiles – a not-so-subtle message to Europe and the U.S.: get us more of your long-range weapons, and we can help bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

“It’s very impressive,” said Balazs Jarabik, a former European Union diplomat and analyst for RPolitik, said of Ukraine’s campaign against the Russian energy sector. In an interview with The Cipher Brief, Jarabik said the attacks have “had an impact in terms of getting headlines, making the Russian war effort more expensive, and creating shortages so the Russian people feel the pain of the war.”

That’s also the aim of the recent U.S. sanctions against energy giants Rosneft and Lukoil, the first American economic penalties imposed on Russia since Donald Trump returned to office. The Treasury Department said the sanctions would “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine.”

While Ukrainian officials have welcomed the sanctions, they have also said that their drone and missile attacks pack a more powerful punch.

“Our strikes have already had more impact than sanctions,” Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s head of Military Intelligence, said on Telegram following last week’s spate of attacks.

For their part, Putin and other Russian officials have downplayed the impact of the strikes while at the same time warning that they are dangerously escalatory. The Kremlin has also said that neither the attacks nor the sanctions will move them to change course in the war.

Experts say both sides may be right – that in the short term, the Kremlin can probably ride out the impact of the Ukrainian campaign, but that Russia may feel significant pain if the sanctions are enforced and the oil sector strikes continue.

“Russia’s oil refineries are a bit like a man who is being repeatedly punched,” Sergey Vakulenko, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote in a recent assessment for Carnegie Politika. “He will not die from one punch, or even half a dozen punches. But it becomes harder and harder for him to recover after each subsequent blow. Although no single punch is fatal, he could end up being beaten to death.”

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Assessing the damage

To date, the Ukrainian strikes have hit 21 of Russia's 38 large oil refineries, according to the BBC, and several have been struck more than once. Roughly 20% of the nation’s refining capacity has been damaged or destroyed, and last month the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that Russia's revenues from crude oil and refined products had fallen to their lowest level in a decade – excluding the period immediately following the COVID-19 outbreak.

"Persistent attacks on Russian energy infrastructure have cut Russian crude processing by an estimated 500,000 barrels per day, resulting in domestic fuel shortages and lower product exports," the IEA said. In an accompanying forecast, the agency said that if the sanctions remain in place and the attacks continue – even without Zelensky’s promised scaling-up of their cadence – the impact to Russia’s refining would stretch to at least mid-2026.

Beyond the macroeconomic impact, the Ukrainian campaign has also been felt by Russian citizens, in the form of higher fuel prices and – in some regions – shortages and long lines for gas.

“The economic impact of strikes against Russian energy infrastructure is beginning to be felt outside of Moscow, as Russia diverts available energy from the regions to keep Moscow supplied,” Rob Dannenberg, a former chief of the CIA’s Central Eurasia Division, wrote last week in The Cipher Brief. “There are shortages and energy price hikes that the Kremlin can no longer conceal.”

And in a broader reflection of Russia’s economic woes, this week the central bank downgraded the country’s growth forecast. Experts say the sanctions and Ukrainian strikes are a big part of the problem for Moscow.

“Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure are strategically meaningful and increasingly so,” Jacek Siewiera, a former head of Poland’s National Security Bureau, told The Cipher Brief. He said the strikes are serving three strategic functions: forcing Russia to divert efforts to rear-area defense; raising the overall cost of war by creating new logistical costs inside Russia; and a less tangible, more symbolic impact.

“These attacks send a message to Moscow and its economy that Ukraine – and its backers – can reach deep,” Siewiera said. “That has symbolic as well as material value.”

What comes next

Might the Ukrainian campaign alter the course of the war? Experts are divided on the question.

On the one hand, dozens of Russian oil sector targets are now within reach of Ukrainian missiles and drones – and it’s clear that Zelensky’s vow to expand and intensify the campaign is underway. An already-bruised industry in Russia is surely girding for more punishment.

But several experts said that in order to sustain the tempo and volume of the attacks, Ukraine will need help from the West or a significant boost to its own capabilities.

“Ukraine has made impressive inroads but it’s not yet clear whether the strikes will fundamentally degrade Russia’s war-fighting capacity,” Siewiera said. He and others echoed Zelensky’s point – that the West should support Ukraine’s deep-strike capabilities to boost the impact of the current attacks, and improve the odds that they will effect change in Moscow. Until then, Siewiera said, it’s unlikely that the campaign can deliver “a knockout blow.”

Jarabik agreed, noting that Ukrainian drones typically carry payloads of only 50-60 kilograms (roughly 110-130 pounds); long-range missile systems can inflict far greater damage. He and others said that much will depend on the success of the Ukrainian-made Flamingo missile – which has been touted as a homegrown alternative to western long-range weapons. Officials say the Flamingo is now operational, and that it can carry more than 1,000 kilos (2000+ pounds), with a range of roughly 1800 miles.

“I think we are going to see the Ukrainian strikes increasing,” Jarabik said. “The big question here is whether Ukrainians are going to have the missile capabilities to scale the attack.” At the current rate, he said, Ukraine cannot compel the Kremlin to alter its approach. “So far, neither the sanctions nor this (campaign of strikes) is actually enough to bring the end of the war. Russia has the means to continue.”

All those interviewed for this piece agreed that the success of the Ukrainian campaign will depend on whether Ukraine can hit more targets, more frequently, and with heavier payloads.

“As Ukraine continues to improve its long-range precision strike capability – and if the West adds its own weapons to Ukraine’s arsenal – the impact is going to increase significantly,” Lt. Gen. Hodges said. And that, he said, “could lead to a successful outcome for Ukraine.”

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OPINION — Russian drones are forcing airports to close and fighter jets are breaching NATO airspace – clear signals of Moscow’s widening hybrid campaign. The cost imbalance is stark, with Europe spending hundreds of thousands to destroy drones worth a fraction of that. Emboldened by this asymmetry, Vladimir Putin is escalating with growing confidence, betting that the West will stop short of real retribution, like giving Ukraine long-range missiles to destroy his drone factories.

Russia began its escalation on Sept. 9 by sending drones into Polish airspace, followed by an incursion into Romania. Days later, a Russian fighter jet breached Estonian airspace. In recent weeks, drones have been shutting down airports in Denmark and Norway.

Moscow is intensifying its hybrid warfare campaign against Europe in the hope of pressuring governments into concessions. At the same time, Putin depends on a state of constant confrontation to sustain his regime.

Months of U.S. diplomacy with Moscow under the Trump administration have also achieved little. President Donald Trump insists he is always “two weeks” away from a decision, but the Kremlin calculates it can outlast Ukraine on the battlefield, fracture European unity, and sap American interest. Russia remains defiant, refusing meaningful negotiations.

As Le Monde observed, Russian diplomacy follows familiar Soviet patterns: table maximalist demands, stage symbolic talks, issue threats, then offer only token concessions. George Kennan, the American diplomat who defined early Cold War strategy, once noted that the Soviets “will ask for the moon, demand the moon, and accept nothing less.”

John Sullivan, U.S. ambassador to Moscow from 2020 to 2022, echoed the same view, describing Russian negotiations as “maximalist demands, surrender nothing, paranoia to the nth degree.” Europe must strip away all false illusions that the war will end anytime soon.

Any sort of peace agreement that resembles the Budapest Memorandum or Minsk agreements will surely bring a much bigger war to Europe in the future. And the Trump administration has shown itself to be an unreliable ally. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, if Europe can take advantage and scale its own capabilities and European defense firms.

At the same time, Washington’s own priorities are shifting. According to POLITICO, The Pentagon’s new draft defense strategy places homeland and Western Hemisphere security above countering China or Russia.

To Trump’s credit, in just a few months he has pushed Europe to take the Russian threat more seriously than some capitals managed in three years of full-scale war. Germany, the continent’s largest economy, had announced sweeping ambitions to rebuild its military after the invasion. But once it became clear that Ukraine would not collapse, Berlin grew complacent, and much of its investment drive – including the much-touted €100 billion “special fund” – faltered.

However, Washington’s retreat also presents Europe with a chance to take greater ownership of its security and lessen its reliance on the United States. In our new Henry Jackson Society report, European Defence Autonomy: Identifying Key Companies and Projects to Replace U.S. Capabilities, my co-author Mykola Kuzmin and I argue that Europe now has a strategic opportunity to leverage its own European defense sector to prepare for a future war with Russia if it comes to that. It is better to be prepared than left scrambling when the moment of crisis arrives.

Europe cannot afford to rely on the U.S. for its core defense capabilities – nor on the whims of individuals like Elon Musk, shown by his restricting of Starlink access in Ukraine in Kherson and occupied-Crimea. Starlink’s unrivaled 8,000-satellite constellation highlights Europe’s dependence, with alternatives like Eutelsat OneWeb far smaller and prohibitively expensive. At the same time, Russia is developing a $5 billion satellite internet system called Rassvet, intended as an alternative to Starlink, with plans to launch nearly 300 satellites by 2030.

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This technological push comes alongside its aggressive use of drones to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Russia has been overwhelming Ukrainian cities with nightly drone attacks and has flown over 530 surveillance drones across Germany this year to monitor Western arms shipments, including near Bundeswehr bases. Yet German forces cannot shoot them down due to legal limits.

If Moscow is already doing this with its hybrid war, the scale of a full-scale war will be far greater. The economics of war are quickly being transformed in Ukraine. That is why Europe must invest in low-cost drone interceptors and other scalable technologies. Relying on million-dollar American Patriot interceptor missiles for every drone attack is simply unsustainable.

Russia and China have a booming drone-alliance and the Axis of Evil is helping one another grow technologically. Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela are all gaining technologically through cooperation with one another.

Deborah Fairlamb, co-founder of Green Flag Ventures, a venture capital fund for Ukrainian startups said, “Chinese components continue to be found in downed Russian drones, and a number of Chinese nationals have been documented alongside Russian troops – indicating that tactical and technological lessons are being shared between Russia, China, and North Korea.”

The continent also has a booming defense tech sector, and I have embedded with frontline units using European technologies like the Vector drone. As the Financial Times noted, “Europe now boasts three defence start-ups with a ‘unicorn’ valuation of more than €1bn: drone makers Helsing, Quantum Systems, and Tekever.”

Lyuba Shipovich, CEO of Dignitas Ukraine highlighted that Estonia has multiple companies now working on robotics. “We don’t have many of their systems here because they’re expensive, but some are comparable to Ukrainian designs,” said Shipovich.

Estonia-based Milrem Robotics has found success in Ukraine, and its THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is being used on the front. Milrem’s THeMIS UGVs are proving their worth in Ukraine – so much so that Russia offered a bounty for capturing them intact.

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Crucially, Europe has Ukraine on its side, which is now a global drone superpower. “What does carry undeniable value for the West, however, is the experience and insight of Ukrainian engineers,” said Vitaliy Goncharuk, CEO of A19Lab and former Chairman of the Artificial Intelligence Committee of Ukraine.

But Kyiv urgently needs more funding to scale weapons production, and Europe should focus on fully integrating Ukraine into its broader defense sector. The tempo of war is accelerating, with innovation cycles now measured in mere weeks and months. As one European diplomat put it: “The speed of innovation is so quick: It’s a six-week cycle and then it’s obsolete.”

The war is now a technological race and Ukrainian engineers are at the forefront. Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian member of parliament said, “Ukraine has developed technologies under real battlefield conditions that the rest of the world will want in the next five years.”

In fact, Kyiv has the capacity to produce millions of drones, but money remains the limiting factor. “Ukraine can produce 8–10 million FPVs annually but can only afford to buy about 4.5 million in 2025,” said Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center and former Ministry of Defense adviser. “Scaling requires European and international investment, via direct funding or joint ventures.”

Together with Ukraine, Europe can become an AI superpower and prepare for the future of automated warfare. It is Kyiv that is now educating the Europeans on how to build a “drone wall” to defend itself. But technology alone won’t decide the war, as will power is needed. The larger geopolitical stakes remain clear for the European alliance.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and the world failed to stop the seizure of Crimea, it fractured the international order that had held for decades. The longer Moscow wages its current war and if it secures any permanent gains, the more emboldened it will become. Russia sees itself as an empire, and empires expand. Europe must prepare accordingly, ready to fight alone if necessary.

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