The refinery war and the vulnerability of modern society

The war in Ukraine is revealing something that is easy to overlook in peacetime: modern military power, like modern civilization itself, depends on continuous supplies of usable transportation fuels and other products made from crude oil.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian oil refineries with long-range drones. In recent weeks, several major Russian refineries have been forced to suspend or reduce operations following drone attacks. On September 20, a Ukrainian drone attack damaged the Moscow oil refinery, causing fires at its two main crude distillation units. According to industry sources cited by Reuters, the refinery subsequently halted crude processing, and repairs could take several weeks. The facility processed approximately 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2024 and produced gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products.

Why would a refinery be such an important target? The answer lies in the difference between crude oil and refined products.

• Crude oil is a valuable natural resource, but it is not directly used as gasoline for a car, diesel fuel for a truck, or jet fuel for an aircraft.
• Crude oil must first pass through a complex series of refining processes that separate, convert, and treat its various components.

The result is a range of transportation fuels and products that can be used by transportation, industry, agriculture, and the military.

In this sense, the refinery is a critical conversion point between a natural resource and the usable forms of energy required by our modern industrial society.

The distinction between raw crude oil and the transportation fuels and products made from that oil becomes particularly important during war.

In the Western world, the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia is sometimes described as a modern-day "David and Goliath" struggle. In the biblical story, David defeated Goliath with a simple sling and a stone, turning a seemingly insignificant weapon into a powerful means of attack. In today's conflict, drones have taken the place of David's sling: relatively small and inexpensive weapons can be used to strike large and strategically important infrastructure targets. But there is an important difference. Both sides now use drones against the other side's refineries, energy infrastructure, and other strategically important targets. In that sense, the "David and Goliath" narrative does not fully describe the reality of the conflict. What is more relevant to our discussion is the asymmetric use of technology to target critical energy infrastructure.

A military may possess large quantities of crude oil, but tanks, military trucks, and aircraft do not run on crude oil. They require refined transportation fuels. Military logistics therefore depend not only on access to oil resources, but also on the ability to refine, store, and transport those transportation fuels to where they are needed.

This gives refineries strategic importance.

Ukraine's attacks can therefore be understood as a form of asymmetric warfare. Rather than attempting to match Russia's much larger conventional military capability directly, Ukraine is using relatively inexpensive long-range drones to attack complex and expensive industrial infrastructure. The objective is not necessarily to destroy military equipment itself, but to interfere with one of the systems that enables that equipment to operate.

The economic logic is straightforward. If a refinery is damaged, the consequences may extend far beyond the immediate physical damage. A damaged crude distillation unit can reduce the refinery's ability to process crude oil and produce transportation fuels. If several refineries are affected simultaneously, the resulting reduction in refining capacity can place additional pressure on domestic fuel supplies.