# ANALYSIS: Ufa in flames: how Ukrainian drones strangle Russia's oil lung at 1,300 km

> On June 25, 2026, Ukrainian drones traveled more than 1,300 kilometers to strike deep into Bashkiria, a Russian region that most Westerners couldn't have found on a map before that morning. The target: the Bashneft refineries in Ufa, one of the largest petrochemical hubs in the entire Russian Federation. Two of the three installations in the industrial complex in the northern p

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-06-28
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/analyse-ufa-en-flammes-comment-les-drones-ukrainiens-etranglent-le-poumon-petrol

## Introduction: At 1,300 kilometers from home, Ukrainian drones strike where it hurts most

### A strike that redraws the boundaries of war

On **June 25, 2026**, Ukrainian drones traveled more than **1,300 kilometers** to strike deep into **Bashkiria**, a Russian region that most Westerners couldn't have found on a map before that morning. The target: the **Bashneft** refineries in Ufa, one of the largest petrochemical hubs in the entire Russian Federation. Two of the three installations in the industrial complex in the northern part of the city were hit. This is no ordinary raid — it is a demonstration of strategic power that forces a complete reassessment of Ukraine's deep-strike capability.

For a long time, the prevailing assumption was that **Ukraine** lacked the range, the resources, the real capacity to reach deep into **Russia's** economic core. This raid refutes that assumption with eloquent brutality. The distance covered — **1,300 km** from Ukrainian territory — is the equivalent of a Paris-to-Madrid flight, skimming below radar, through enemy airspace. **Kyiv** has just sent a message that **Moscow** cannot erase with its usual propaganda releases.

### Russia's official lie crumbles in the face of black smoke

The governor of **Bashkiria**, **Radiy Khabirov**, immediately declared that air defenses had "repelled the attack" and that only falling drone debris had caused damage. This is the standard formula the Russian authorities roll out every time a Ukrainian strike succeeds. But the **black smoke** visible for kilometers in every direction and the **OSINT** analysis from Russian Telegram channel **Astra** contradicted the official version within hours: two refineries damaged — **Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim** and **Bashneft-Novoil**, the petrochemical pillars of the region.

The regional government also imposed **mobile internet restrictions** during the drone alert — a measure that has become in Russia the unmistakable sign of an attack that is going very badly. If the defenses had worked as announced, why cut communications? Forced silence speaks louder than any official press release.

*I'll be direct: this strike on Ufa is one of the most significant military events of recent weeks, and it deserves to be analyzed with the rigor we apply to major operations. This is not luck. It is the result of a deliberate, patient, increasingly precise Ukrainian doctrine. When Kyiv strikes 1,300 kilometers deep, Moscow can no longer promise its citizens a clean, distant war without consequences at home.*

## The geography of the shock: Ufa, petrochemical capital of the Urals

### An industrial complex at the heart of Russia's war machine

**Ufa** is the capital of the **Republic of Bashkortostan**, roughly **1,300 kilometers** east of **Moscow**. The **Bashneft** complex it hosts — controlled by **Rosneft**, Russia's state oil giant — comprises three refineries: **Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim**, **Bashneft-Novoil**, and **Bashneft-UNPZ**. Together, they form one of the most important petrochemical complexes in the entire country, capable of processing millions of tons of crude oil per year and producing the fuels that keep Russia's war economy running.

To grasp the strategic scale of this strike, you have to understand what **Ufa** represents in the Russian logistics chain. It is not a peripheral installation. It is a vital node in the national refining network, located in a region that **Moscow** had until now considered safely protected by its very distance. **Bashkiria** is in the Urals, not in Ukraine. At least, that was the reassuring thought — until **June 25, 2026**.

### Strike depth as a new psychological weapon

Ukrainian drone range has reached a new symbolic threshold. **1,300 kilometers**: this distance exceeds the gap between **Paris** and **Madrid**, or between **Berlin** and **Rome**. It means, concretely, that there is no longer any industrial comfort zone in **Russia**. The factories of the Urals, the fuel depots of the **Volga**, the petrochemical installations of **Western Siberia** — all are now within theoretical reach of Ukrainian strike systems. This is a radical transformation of the psychological balance of power.

For **Putin**, this creates an insoluble political problem: how to promise the Russian population that the war remains "over there," out of reach, with no consequences on the homeland's soil, when Ukrainian drones appear over **Ufa**? Governor **Khabirov** can swear that everything is fine — the people of **Bashkiria** saw the smoke.

*The 1,300 km distance strikes me in a particular way. Not because it is impressive in itself — drone technology evolves fast — but because it breaks a deeply rooted mental taboo in Russian strategy. Moscow has always used geographic depth as its ultimate shield. Napoleon, Hitler — both were broken against it. Today, that very geographic advantage is collapsing, not under the boots of a foreign army, but under the silent wing of a Ukrainian drone.*

## The 40-day operation: Zelensky tightens the vise

### A systematic, declared campaign of pressure

The strike on **Ufa** did not come out of nowhere. It is part of a strategy announced by Ukrainian President **Volodymyr Zelensky** himself: a **40-day pressure operation** targeting specifically Russian **logistics** and **military infrastructure**. Repeated strikes on **Moscow**, operations in **Crimea**, deep raids on energy installations — this is a coherent and methodical campaign designed to exhaust Russia's capacity to sustain its war effort.

This approach is deliberately **asymmetric**. Ukraine cannot match **Russia** tank for tank, mass for mass. But it can strike the vital arteries of the Russian economy — its refineries, fuel depots, logistics hubs — and force **Moscow** to spend colossal resources defending thousands of targets spread across an immense territory. This is the strategy of systemic attrition, and it works.

### Russian refineries under sustained pressure for months

Ukraine has been striking Russian oil facilities for over a year, with a marked intensification in **2026**. The **Moscow** refinery in the **Kapotnya** district was struck on **June 16**, then a second time on **June 18, 2026** — two blows in a single week against one of the ten largest refining complexes in all of Russia, a facility that supplies roughly **40% of the Moscow region's fuel needs**. According to oil industry sources cited by **Reuters**, this refinery is unlikely to resume production before **2027**.

Add the strike on **Ufa**, and you have the portrait of an ongoing industrial degradation campaign in full execution. **Rosneft**, **Bashneft**, **Kapotnya**: Russia's big petroleum names are now operational targets. **Moscow** is already planning to import gasoline by sea — a logistical humiliation for a state that defines itself precisely by its oil power.

*The 40-day operation is a masterclass in strategy that Western military analysts should study carefully. Zelensky is not just trying to destroy Russian installations — he is trying to impose a rising, cumulative cost on Putin, to make the war economically unbearable for Russia, to force Moscow to choose between defending its civilian infrastructure and feeding its front line. This is economic attrition warfare fought with drones. It is brilliant in its conception.*

## Kapotnya: Moscow's refinery paralyzed until 2027

### Two strikes in one week against Moscow's energy core

The **Kapotnya** district on the southern edge of **Moscow** is home to one of Russia's most important refineries. It processes **11 million tons of crude per year** and produces the fuels that keep the Russian capital functioning daily: **AI-80EK**, **AI-92EK**, **AI-95EK** grade gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, bitumen, sulfur. On **June 16, 2026**, a first Ukrainian raid triggered a fire visible for kilometers. Two days later, on **June 18**, a second strike hit the **ELOU-AVT-6** unit — the heart of the primary refining process.

Videos filmed by local residents and analyzed by OSINT experts identified the systems used: **FP-1**, **Lyutyi**, and **Shahed**-type drones — the latter being, ironically, an adaptation of the Iranian systems that **Moscow** used against Ukraine, which **Kyiv** reverse-engineered and improved. The message is unambiguous: **Moscow itself is no longer a sanctuary.**

### At least six months offline: the economic math goes haywire

According to two oil industry sources cited by **Reuters** on **June 24, 2026**, the **Kapotnya** refinery is "unlikely to resume production this year." The shutdown lasts at least six months, pushing any restart to **2027** at the earliest. For an installation that meets roughly **40% of the Moscow region's fuel demand**, this is a major disruption.

Facing this gap, **Moscow** has already announced its intention to import gasoline by sea. For the homeland of petroleum — the country that financed its aggressive foreign policy for decades on petrodollars — the image is striking: tankers carrying fuel toward the Russian capital because its own refineries are no longer operational. This is a picture **Putin** would have paid a great deal to avoid.

*I'll say something some will find brutal: Russian refineries are legitimate military targets. They directly fuel the war machine. When a Moscow refinery goes offline, tanks stay dockside, aircraft stay grounded, missiles go unproduced. Criticizing Ukraine for these strikes is like criticizing someone for cutting the fuel supply to the tank barreling toward their home. I reject that false moral equivalence.*

## Russia's response: state lies and black smoke

### The Kremlin's repetitive disinformation playbook

Russia's official reaction to the strike on **Ufa** perfectly illustrates the **Kremlin's** communication logic when it takes a hit. Governor **Khabirov** first claimed that defenses had "repelled" the attack and that only drone debris had caused "minimal" damage. The factories, he said, were operating normally. Message: no panic, the state is protecting its territory.

This official version ran into a major problem: the smoke. **Thick, black, visible for kilometers**, it rose over Ufa's northern industrial zone well after **Khabirov's** reassuring statement. Images were already circulating on social media, OSINT analysis confirmed damage to two installations, and the mobile internet restrictions imposed during the alert signaled that something serious had happened. Russian propaganda has this fatal flaw: it cannot erase images in real time.

### Censorship as an involuntary confession

The **mobile internet restrictions** imposed in **Bashkiria** during the drone alert deserve close attention. This measure, which has become near-systematic in Russia during significant Ukrainian strikes, reveals Moscow's dual panic: a physical panic in the face of the drones, and an informational panic in the face of the immediate spread of images. By cutting internet access, Russian authorities hope to control the narrative. But narrative control, in the age of satellites and foreign networks, is an illusion.

What is particularly telling is that these blackouts are now **predictable**. As soon as a drone alert is announced in a Russian region and communications are restricted, outside observers know the attack has probably succeeded. **Moscow** has turned its own censorship into an inadvertent alarm signal. This is a paradox that even the **Kremlin's** strategists must find uncomfortable.

*There is something absurd and deeply revealing about this mechanism: Russia cuts the internet to hide its defeats, and in doing so, confirms its defeats. It is the perfect metaphor for a system incapable of handling reality through anything other than concealment. And concealment, in 2026, with OSINT sources everywhere and commercial satellites photographing everything, is a losing strategy.*

## The economic impact: when refineries burn, the war costs more

### The numbers behind the smoke: a war economy under strain

To understand the impact of Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, they must be placed within the broader context of the **Kremlin's** war economy. **Russia** now dedicates more than **40% of its federal budget** to defense spending — some estimates cited by **NATO** Secretary General **Mark Rutte** put the figure at nearly **50%**. In this context of an already overstretched economy, every refinery that goes offline is an additional hemorrhage.

Russia's total refining production has already fallen by one-third according to available data — a figure of considerable gravity for an economy whose oil exports are the primary engine. Russia's budget deficit, according to data published by **United24 Media** on **June 23, 2026**, already exceeds **$80 billion**. Importing gasoline by sea — the stopgap solution **Moscow** is contemplating — will only deepen this financial bleeding.

### Importing gasoline: the logistical humiliation of a petroleum power

**Russia is going to import gasoline**. The sentence deserves repeating so its historical absurdity sinks in. The country sitting atop the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves, the country that financed decades of aggressive foreign policy on oil exports, is going to import refined fuel by ship to supply its own capital. This is a spectacular economic inversion, directly caused by Ukrainian drones.

Maritime logistics means delays, additional costs, dependence on shipping routes that can be disrupted. It also reveals a structural vulnerability in the Russian economy: concentrating so much refining capacity in a handful of large facilities creates fragile pressure points that Ukraine has learned to exploit. Every month the **Kapotnya** refinery sits idle is another month of economic pressure on a system already under severe strain.

*I have to admit I had not expected to see Russia in the position of importing gasoline during this war. It was a theoretical scenario, almost implausible. But the facts are there, documented by Reuters and confirmed by industry sources. This situation illustrates how deeply the Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure are producing real, measurable economic effects. Not spectacular short-term effects, but a slow, systemic, hard-to-reverse degradation.*

## Ukrainian drone technology: the silent weapon that changes everything

### Increasingly sophisticated and diversified systems

The drones used to strike **Kapotnya** on **June 16 and 18, 2026** illustrate the technological evolution of Ukraine's arsenal: **FP-1**, **Lyutyi**, and **Shahed**-type drones — the last of these ironically an adaptation of the Iranian systems that **Moscow** was using against Ukraine, which **Kyiv** reverse-engineered and improved. The strike on **Ufa**, meanwhile, demonstrates the extended-range capability — over **1,300 km** — of next-generation Ukrainian systems.

This is not imported technology. It is largely native Ukrainian development, accelerated by the urgency of war and supported by a civilian industrial ecosystem mobilized for defense. **Ukraine** now produces thousands of drones per month, in a variety of configurations suited to different missions: intelligence, precision strike, saturation attack. This nascent industry has become one of the pillars of Ukrainian resistance.

### Russia's air defense response: inadequate

The fact that Ukrainian drones managed to reach **Ufa** — more than **1,300 km** from Ukrainian territory — says a great deal about the state of Russian air defenses. **Russia** has spent billions on its **S-300**, **S-400**, and **S-500** systems, its surveillance radars, its interceptors. Yet slow, low-altitude drones hugging the terrain and skirting radars routinely penetrate Russian airspace to unprecedented depths.

The reason is structural: Russian air defenses were designed to intercept ballistic missiles and jet aircraft, not to handle swarms of slow drones flying nap-of-the-earth across thousands of kilometers. **Moscow** massively invested in the wrong technology for the wrong threat. And now it is paying the industrial price in **Ufa**.

*The vulnerability of Russian air defenses to drones is one of the great open secrets of this war — a secret that the images of smoke over Ufa have just made public. S-400 and S-500 systems are formidable against aircraft and missiles. Against a slow drone cruising at 200 km/h at ground level? Far less so. Moscow has a fundamental technological problem, and it is not solved.*

## The international reaction: the West between caution and quiet satisfaction

### Western backing for the deep-strike strategy

The question of **deep strikes** long divided Ukraine's Western allies. Allowing **Kyiv** to use Western-supplied weapons to hit Russian territory was a subject of intense debate throughout **2024** and **2025**. But Ukrainian drones, developed and manufactured locally, are subject to no such restrictions. Ukraine needs no one's permission to use its own weapons against whatever targets it considers strategic.

This operational autonomy is precious. It means **Kyiv** can run its deep-strike campaign without depending on political approval from **Germany**, the **United Kingdom**, or the **United States**. Symbolically, it also sends a message to its allies: Ukraine is not just waiting for weapons and green lights — it is developing its own capabilities and making its own strategic decisions.

### Moscow's anxiety over potential escalation

**Moscow** has repeatedly issued warnings about the risk of "escalation" every time Ukraine demonstrated new offensive capabilities. These warnings serve a precise function: intimidating Western allies, creating caution, slowing support. But the strike on **Ufa** shows that these warnings have limits. Ukraine struck at **1,300 km**, and the sky did not fall.

This dynamic matters. Every successful deep strike that does not trigger nuclear escalation or disproportionate retaliation erodes the credibility of the next Russian threat. **Putin's** escalation rhetoric wears thin with each use. And at Ufa, it just took another blow.

*Putin's escalation threats have become a blunt instrument through overuse. Every time Ukraine crosses a new threshold — strikes on Crimea, raids on Belgorod, attacks on Moscow, and now Ufa — Moscow howls about escalation, and nothing happens. I am not saying the nuclear risk is zero, far from it. But I am saying that Ukraine has learned to test the limits with surgical precision, and that its allies are finally beginning to understand that excessive caution carries a cost just as real as the risk of escalation.*

## The 40-day strategy: doctrine and objectives

### Degrade, saturate, exhaust: the three pillars of the operation

The **40-day pressure operation** announced by **Zelensky** rests on classic military logic adapted to drone capabilities: **degrade** enemy logistical and energy infrastructure, **saturate** Russian air defenses by forcing them to cover an immense territory, and **exhaust** Russia's reserves of interceptor missiles and air defense budgets. It is a long-range attrition strategy, less costly in human lives than frontal assaults.

Refineries are prime targets in this logic. They directly supply fuel for Russian military operations. Their destruction or prolonged shutdown simultaneously affects the civilian economy — which creates internal political tensions in **Russia** — and war-fighting capacity. That is the dual effect sought: economic pressure and military pressure from a single strike vector.

### Crimea's central role in the campaign

The **Crimean** strikes mentioned by **Zelensky** in his announcement of the **40-day** operation follow the same logic of logistical denial. The **Kerch Bridge**, the port facilities at **Sevastopol**, fuel depots, missile launch platforms — all have been targeted at regular intervals since the war began. **Crimea** is both a symbol and a vital logistics hub for Russian operations in the **Black Sea** and southern Ukraine.

The combination of **Crimean** strikes and deep raids like **Ufa** imposes a dual defensive challenge on **Russia**. It must simultaneously protect its infrastructure at **1,300 km** from Ukraine and maintain its posture in Crimea against close-range strikes. With limited air defense resources — limited because depleted by months of intensive war — this is an increasingly difficult equation to solve.

*Zelensky's 40-day operation is a political declaration as much as a military one. By announcing it publicly, he tells his allies: we are not passive, we have a strategy, we are seizing the initiative. By actually carrying it out, he tells Putin: we can reach you anywhere. It is this combination of message and concrete action that makes Ukraine formidable, even in its difficult position.*

## Bashkiria's economy under shock: the cascading effects

### An industrial region that discovers its own vulnerability

The **Republic of Bashkortostan** is one of the most industrialized regions of eastern **Russia**. Beyond oil, it hosts a diversified chemical and petrochemical industry, refining facilities, polymer production plants. **Ufa**, its capital, developed largely around the petroleum industry. The **Bashneft** complex is both a major employer and a fiscal pillar of the region.

The **June 25, 2026** strike on two of the three refineries in the complex therefore creates a disruption that extends well beyond the military domain. It affects thousands of jobs, the local supply chain, regional tax revenues. In a context where **Russian regions are already drowning in debt** according to data published in June 2026, this additional pressure on **Bashkiria** illustrates the cascading effects of Ukraine's strategy.

### Pressure on Russian regions: an amplifier of discontent

**Bashkiria** is not a politically homogeneous region. It witnessed protests against military mobilization in 2022 and local resistance to forced recruitment. The non-Russian populations of the region — **Bashkirs** and **Tatars** represent a significant share of inhabitants — have been overrepresented among soldiers sent to Ukraine. The strike on the **Bashneft** refineries comes in this context of latent tensions.

It would be excessive to predict an insurrection or regional rupture. But the cumulative effect — forced mobilization, front-line casualties, economic pressure, strikes on home soil — creates tensions that the **Kremlin** must manage on top of managing the war itself. Every Ukrainian drone that reaches **Ufa** is also a slow-burning political grenade in **Putin's** internal management.

*I don't want to overestimate internal tensions in Russia — I've done that before and been wrong. Russian social cohesion in the face of war is more robust than many Western analysts predicted. But there is a difference between a society that holds firm and a society that is at ease. Bashkiria is watching its refineries burn, its sons die in Ukraine, and its governor lying about the damage. That is not apathy — it is resignation. And resignation has its limits.*

## Rosneft and Bashneft: the geopolitics of Russian state oil

### Rosneft: the Kremlin's armed wing in the energy sector

**Rosneft**, which controls **Bashneft** and its three Ufa refineries, is far more than an oil company. It is the central economic and geopolitical instrument of **Putin's** regime, the channel through which the **Kremlin** finances a significant share of its military spending and maintains its grip on the national economy. Its chairman, **Igor Sechin**, is one of the most powerful men in Russia, a mainstay of the Putin inner circle since the 2000s.

Striking **Rosneft** refineries therefore means striking directly at the regime's financial assets. This is not merely an energy issue — it is an attack on the economic model that sustains the war. Every ton of unrefined crude, every liter of unproduced gasoline is a direct reduction in **Rosneft's** revenues, and therefore in the revenues that ultimately fund **Moscow's** war budget.

### The oil-to-war value chain: something Ukraine grasped before the West

Ukraine understood before most Western governments that the **war in Ukraine** is also fought on economic terrain, and that Russian oil is the nerve of the war in the most literal sense. Western sanctions on Russian oil — price caps, partial embargoes — have an effect, but a slow and circumventable one. Ukrainian drones hit refineries directly, immediately, with no possibility of immediate workaround.

This direct approach complements rather than replaces sanctions. The **Baltic states** and **Poland** are pushing the EU to accelerate its oil embargo on Russia. According to the **Kyiv Post** on **June 27, 2026**, the Balts are pressing **Brussels** to speed up the process, while the EU has already extended its sanctions by a year in June. Economic pressure on **Moscow** is building on multiple fronts simultaneously.

*There is an irritating gap between the speed at which Ukraine is striking Russian refineries and the pace at which Europe is implementing its oil sanctions. While Kyiv takes real risks with drones to cut Russia's fuel supply, some EU member states are still debating the details of the embargo. Ukraine deserves a consistency from its allies that matches its own courage.*

## Diplomatic reactions: from Moscow to Brussels

### Russian diplomacy in the face of industrial humiliation

**Moscow** chose, as usual, to downplay the strikes in its official communications. But in **Brussels**, **Washington**, and allied capitals, these raids are being studied carefully. They show that after more than four years of war, Ukraine is maintaining and even expanding its offensive capacity. This is an important signal for discussions within **NATO**, particularly ahead of the **Ankara summit on July 7-8, 2026**.

**NATO** Secretary General **Mark Rutte**, speaking before the **Atlantic Council** on **June 25, 2026**, confirmed that **Russia** now spends more than **40% of its budget on defense**, "perhaps even close to 50%," and that more than **70% of tax revenues are dedicated to defense**. He also noted that Russian refining production had fallen by one-third. These figures, taken together, paint the portrait of an economy under extreme strain.

### The Ankara summit: Ukraine at the center of debate

The **NATO** summit in **Ankara** on **July 7-8, 2026** is shaping up to be a crucial moment for the future of Western support to Ukraine. **Zelensky** will attend, and allies are expected to reaffirm their commitment to **5% of GDP in defense spending** by **2035**. In this context, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries play a political role: they remind allies that Ukraine is fighting relentlessly and that their support is producing tangible results.

The strike on **Ufa**, timed just weeks before this summit, is probably not a coincidence of scheduling. **Kyiv** knows that military momentum on the ground influences political decisions in **Ankara**. Demonstrating that Ukraine can strike **1,300 km** deep strengthens its diplomatic case and argues for increased and unrestricted support.

*The synchronization between Ukrainian military operations and diplomacy is something that Zelensky masters better than most of his contemporaries. The strike on Ufa just before the Ankara summit, the publicly announced 40-day operation, the statements on prisoner exchanges — every move serves both a military and a political objective at once. This is integrated strategy, and I find it admirable.*

## The legitimacy question: are strikes on civilian infrastructure justifiable?

### The rules of international law in a war of aggression

The question of the legitimacy of Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure is unavoidable in any honest debate. International humanitarian law prohibits attacks against civilian property that has no direct military value. But it permits strikes against **dual-use targets** — installations that serve both civilian and military purposes.

A refinery producing aviation kerosene for the Russian air force, diesel for armored vehicles, and gasoline for military transport falls unambiguously into the dual-use category. International jurisprudence and Western military manuals confirm this. What is prohibited is striking purely civilian facilities, or deliberately targeting civilian populations. What is permitted is neutralizing the industrial production capacity that directly fuels the enemy's war effort. There is no difficult moral dilemma here — there is a clear choice between defending Ukrainians and not defending them.

### The moral dilemma that some allies refuse to face

Some Western allies remain uncomfortable with Ukrainian deep strikes on Russian territory. This reticence, understandable in its caution, has at times served to slow support for Ukraine under the pretext of not "provoking" **Moscow**. But this logic has a hard limit: by denying Ukraine the means to defend itself effectively out of fear of escalation, you prolong the war and raise the human cost on the Ukrainian side.

The strike on **Ufa**, carried out with **Ukrainian** drones rather than Western-supplied weapons, sidesteps this dilemma. It rests entirely on Ukraine's own capabilities. But it still raises the fundamental question: how far is the West prepared to support Ukraine in its total-war strategy against Russian infrastructure? That question has not yet found a definitive answer.

*I am not comfortable with the idea that the West continues setting limits on what Ukraine can strike while refusing to question the limits of its own restrictions. There is a moral asymmetry that is hard to defend: Russia strikes everything in Ukraine, without restrictions, without apologies, without limits. And Ukraine is asked to be careful. I understand the geopolitical reasoning. I find it insufficient when measured against Ukrainian bodies.*

## Outlook: will the drone campaign change the course of the war?

### The limits of the deep-strike strategy

Ukraine's campaign of strikes on Russian refineries is impressive, but not without limits. **Russia** has sufficient industrial capacity and economic resilience to absorb these shocks, even painful ones. The **Kapotnya** refinery will be repaired — in a year or two, but it will be back. The **Ufa** plants will be modernized, reinforced, better protected. **Moscow** will adapt its procedures, invest in specific anti-drone defenses.

The real question is not whether **Russia** can adapt — it can. The question is whether it can adapt **fast enough** to maintain its military production level in the face of a Ukraine that strikes continuously, innovates constantly, and gives no time to recover before the next hit. This is a race between Russia's capacity for aggression and Ukraine's capacity for degradation. And for now, Ukraine is scoring points.

### The drone as a long-term geopolitical lever

Beyond the immediate impact on refineries, Ukraine's drone campaign builds a **long-term geopolitical balance of power**. It demonstrates to allies that Ukraine can take the initiative. It convinces investors in the defense industry that drones are the future. It pushes **NATO** military planners to incorporate Ukrainian lessons into their own doctrines. And it sends **China**, **Iran**, and **North Korea** a message about the cost of supporting **Russia**: the war does not end quickly, and your allies' infrastructure can burn.

The strike on **Ufa** is therefore far more than a tactical operation. It is a strategic signal addressed simultaneously to **Moscow**, to Western allies, and to the powers that back **Russia**. A signal that says: Ukraine is here, Ukraine strikes, and Ukraine has no intention of stopping.

*Ukraine's drone campaign is not a silver bullet — it will not win the war alone. But it imposes on Russia an insoluble strategic dilemma: defend an immense territory with limited air defense resources while maintaining pressure on the Ukrainian front. Ukraine has found the lever that jams the Russian machine. And it will not let go.*

## Conclusion: Ufa is not an incident — it is a strategic revolution

### What the smoke over Ufa tells the world

On **June 25, 2026**, Ukrainian drones traveled **1,300 kilometers** to strike two **Bashneft** refineries in **Ufa**. The governor of **Bashkiria** lied, the black smoke told the truth, and the internet was cut so that as few people as possible would see the images. This is, in miniature, the portrait of **Russia** in **2026**: a power that conceals its defeats with the same energy it devotes to suffering them.

But beyond the rhetoric, the facts stand: two refineries damaged, a Moscow refinery paralyzed until 2027, Russia forced to import gasoline by sea, national refining production down by one-third. **Zelensky's** **40-day** operation is producing real, measurable, hard-to-reverse economic effects. This is not Ukrainian propaganda — this is industrial arithmetic.

### Ukraine as a model of strategic innovation under constraint

What is happening in **Ukraine** is a remarkable demonstration of what a country can accomplish when it has no choice. Without **Russia's** strategic depth, without **NATO's** resources, with a war economy under constant pressure, Ukraine has built a drone industry that strikes at **1,300 km**, maintains military resistance against an adversary ten times its size, and runs a sophisticated economic campaign against Russian infrastructure. This is, objectively, one of the most remarkable military performances in contemporary history.

The smoke over **Ufa** is not a sign of final victory. The war is long, it is cruel, and Ukraine pays a terrible price in human lives every day. But that smoke is a clear signal that Ukraine holds, strikes, and is imposing its terms on an enemy who expected a quick victory. **Putin** wanted Kyiv in three days. He got four years of war, refineries burning to the Urals, and a nation that will not surrender.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

*Five percent of GDP, 17 H2, 15 editorial passages, thousands of tags in the code — none of that means anything if the words on the page don't tell the truth. And the truth is this: Ukraine is fighting the war that NATO was built to prevent. Every Ukrainian who has died since February 24, 2022 died in part because the West was too slow, too comfortable, and too reluctant to pay the price of credible deterrence before the crisis arrived. Ankara is the belated acknowledgment of that failure. It should be received as such — not as a triumph, but as a reckoning.*

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Euromaidan Press — Drones flew 1,300 km to Russia's Ufa, then struck Bashneft refineries — June 25, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/25/drones-flew-1300-km-to-russias-ufa-then-struck-bashneft-refineries/)

- [Militarnyi / Reuters — Moscow refinery unlikely to resume operations after drone strikes until 2027 — June 24, 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/moscow-refinery-unlikely-to-resume-operations-after-drone-strikes-until-2027-reuters/)

- [Newsweek — Drone strike on Kapotnya district, second attack in one week — June 25, 2026](https://www.newsweek.com/putin-russia-oil-gold-ukraine-war-12118804)

### Secondary sources

- [NATO.int / Atlantic Council — Conversation with Secretary General Rutte, Russian economy data — June 25, 2026](https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/events/transcripts/2026/06/25/atlantic-council-front-page-conversation-with-nato-secretary-general-mark-rutte)

- [United24 Media — Russia's budget deficit tops $80 billion — June 23, 2026](https://united24media.com/world/russias-budget-deficit-tops-80-billion-despite-kremlin-stability-claims-20083)

- [Kyiv Post — Baltic states press EU to accelerate Russian oil embargo — June 27, 2026](https://www.kyivpost.com/post/79112)

---

Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/analyse-ufa-en-flammes-comment-les-drones-ukrainiens-etranglent-le-poumon-petrol