Biggest Ukrainian strike on Moscow halts key refinery
Ukrainian drones damaged the Kapotnya refinery in Moscow so severely that repairs are expected to last months, while strikes on Crimea left half the peninsula without power.
- The Kapotnya oil refinery in Moscow was hit in two consecutive strikes, on June 16 and June 18, and reportedly suspended operations.
- The June 18 attack was the largest drone strike on Moscow since the invasion began, with Russian defences claiming to have intercepted about 194 craft.
- Strikes on Crimea on June 23 and 24 left roughly half the peninsula without electricity.
- By June 24, at least 55 of Russia's 83 federal subjects reported limits on petrol and diesel sales.
For Serbia, which still draws most of its gas and a sizeable share of its oil through Russian channels, the news that one of the Russian capital’s key plants has gone offline is not an abstract geopolitical reality on the far side of the front. Every fresh strike on Russian energy infrastructure shifts the maths on the price and availability of fuel across the continent, the pumps in Belgrade included, and the combination of a damaged refinery and rationing across dozens of Russian regions shows how deeply the war is reaching into the logistics of everyday life.
Ukrainian drones hit the Moscow oil refinery in the Kapotnya district twice in the same week, on June 16 and June 18. According to a Reuters report, the damage to the plant’s main processing section is severe enough that repairs will take at least six months and keep the facility out of operation through the end of 2026, with Russian industry sources estimating that full output will not resume before 2027. The Kapotnya refinery supplies, by the same accounts, up to 40 percent of Moscow’s fuel market and about 70 percent of the petrol consumed in the region, which makes its outage far more serious than a merely symbolic hit.
The second strike, carried out overnight on June 18, was among the largest single long-range attacks Kyiv has launched since the war began more than four years ago. Russian air defences said they intercepted about 194 craft, and footage posted by residents on social media showed several fires, explosions and thick smoke over parts of the city. Moscow’s mayor confirmed that drones had struck the refinery, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that his forces had hit the same target for the second time that week.
What is happening with Crimea and Russian fuel?
In parallel with the strikes on the capital, a series of attacks on Crimea on June 23 and 24 hit the peninsula’s energy backbone. The Kerch thermal power plant, the Simferopol power station and Sevastopol’s main electrical substation were all damaged, leaving about half of Crimea without power. The Ukrainian side said the same operation damaged hangars at the Saky military airfield, as well as S-400 and Pantsir-S1 air-defence systems in the Kerch Strait area, a sign that Kyiv is increasingly targeting both the defensive and the energy infrastructure on territory Moscow has held since 2014.
The consequences are clearest at the pumps. By June 24, at least 55 of Russia’s 83 federal subjects had reported some form of restriction on petrol and diesel sales, with estimates suggesting one in four filling stations had imposed limits. The mix of damaged refineries and disrupted distribution is turning what the Kremlin long framed as a distant war into a supply problem felt by an ordinary driver in Tula, Voronezh or Sevastopol.
Why is this strike different from earlier ones?
The difference from previous campaigns lies in range and choice of targets. Where earlier hits on Russian refineries mostly struck plants near the front or in the south, this series shifted the focus to the capital itself and to Crimea at the same time, demonstrating Kyiv’s ability to act in coordinated fashion thousands of kilometres deep. It is a tectonic shift in a war long defined by trench lines in eastern Ukraine: the target is no longer just the army at the front, but the energy system that funds and powers the Russian war machine.
For European chancelleries, including those tracking how the sanctions regime and shortages feed into prices, this raises the question of how long the Russian economy can absorb systematic strikes on refineries without serious consequences for the population. If the Kapotnya plant really does stay offline through the end of the year and fuel rationing spreads, the pressure on the Russian market could become one of the most tangible domestic costs of the war so far. How far will strikes like these, measured in days without power and litres of fuel per driver, shape how this war ends?
