A Possible Turnabout in the Ukraine War

30 January 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

At least 11% of Russia’s total annual oil-refinery and storage capacity has been disabled by swarms of drones from Ukraine that have blown them up during the past two months. 11 Russian oil refineries and storage facilities, all within 1,500 miles of Ukraine, have been hit in the past 60 days, and the 73 Russian refineries that have not been hit are beyond that distance. But potentially, 20% or more of Russia’s oil could become eliminated in this way.

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On January 30th, Britain’s “The i Paper” headlined “Every Russian oil refinery attacked by Ukrainian drones, mapped: Drone attacks against Russian oil facilities have tripled in the past two months”, and reported that

Drone attacks on Russian oil facilities have tripled in the past two months as Ukraine scales up a campaign against energy infrastructure deep inside the country.

In January and December, drones targeted Russian oil refineries and depots in eight separate attacks, three times more than in the previous two months, analysis of open-source material by The i Paper suggests.

Analysts say that while these strikes have previously had minimal impact on Russia’s energy sector, the recent surge is now disrupting the export of oil, which fuels Moscow’s wartime economy.

On Wednesday, four Ukrainian drones targeted the Kstovo Oil Refinery in Nizhny Novgorod, approximately 500 miles from the front lines in eastern Ukraine

Russian oil refineries and depots targeted by Ukraine

Oil sites hit in December 2024 and January 2025: …

This marked the eighth strike in January alone, following earlier attacks that halted production at the Ryazan Oil Refinery, one of the four largest refineries in the country and a key supplier to the Russian military.

In December, Ukrainian drones targeted oil depots and refineries in Smolensk, Oryol, Bryansk, and Rostov — an area that had previously been targeted in July. The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces claimed that the July attack on the Rostov refinery destroyed 1.5 million tons of oil and oil products worth $540 million (£433m). …

A major component of Ukraine’s offensive strategy targeting oil has been the use of cheap-to-make first-person-view drones.

These small, low-cost devices — often equipped with explosives — have become a potent weapon in the conflict, strike high-value targets while their operators remain safely behind enemy lines.

In January, Ukrainian officials claimed that its military now had drone models capable of reaching targets up to 1,500 miles inside Russia. “Our main goal is to conduct strikes on logistics hubs in the rear, ammunition warehouses, and decrease our enemy’s pressure on the front,” said a battalion commander from Ukraine’s 14th Unmanned Aerial Systems Regiment.

The prior day, “Simplicius” headlined “SITREP 1/29/25: Ukraine's Mass Drone Heave”, about

record-breaking drone attacks on Russian territory. There were another two nights of dozens if not hundreds of drones which have triggered debate—particularly from the pro-UA propagandist side—on whether Ukraine is finally breaking through to the ‘singularity’ point wherein production of cheap drones will begin consistently overwhelming Russian defenses, and ability to do anything at all.

Scores of cities experienced the drone incursions, though most were shot down—but still various facilities were hit, most notably a large Ryazan refinery that is claimed to have processed 5% of all Russian oil:

Ryazan oil refinery processed 13.1 million metric tons (262,000 barrels per day), or almost 5% of Russia's total refining throughput in 2024.

It produced 2.2 million tons of gasoline, 3.4 million tons of diesel, 4.3 million tons of fuel oil and 1 million of jet fuel, according to a source-based data.

And another Lukoil one in Nizhny Novgorod at 56.111826782750065, 44.150536106619995, described as one of Russia’s largest, with a claimed 6% of Russian oil passing through it:

Russia: Giant oil refinery struck by Ukrainian drones in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region. It had a refining capacity of 17 million tons per year, accounting for over 6% of Russia's total refining output. Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez is located 800km from Ukraine.

Ukrainians rejoice and post graphics like this one to imply these refineries are taken out permanently:

Of course we know in reality most of them are repaired and back up and running from within days to weeks or less. Others end up taking much less damage than assumed, for instance this recent hit on an Engels base fuel storage area which was sold by Ukrainians as some kind of “total devastation” which ‘starved’ the base’s Tu-95s from being able to fly missions:

As usual, the damage was much lighter than claimed. …

Ukraine’s ramp up in strikes on Russian oil infrastructure is obviously meant to herald this greater overall Western shift to “forcing Putin into negotiations” by crashing the Russian economy to a point where the continuation of the war would be untenable.

On January 29th, David Axe of Forbes headlined “Ukrainian Drones Flew 500 Miles And, In A Single Strike, Damaged 5% Of Russia’s Oil Refining Capacity. The raid in Kstovo capped a month of devastating attacks on Russian energy.”, and reported:

The blasts triggered what the Ukrainian general staff in Kyiv described as a “powerful” fire that burned through the early morning.

“The results and extent of the damage are being clarified,” the general staff reported. But Russian bloggers are already panicking over this and other recent Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s roughly 30 large refineries, critical chokepoints in the country’s most important industry. “Yet another refinery in flames,” one blogger wrote after decrying the apparent absence of air defenses around the strategic sites.

Ukraine’s campaign of deep strikes targeting Russian oil facilities has been going on for around two years, but this month’s raids marked a significant escalation. The Kstovo plant alone refined 13,000,000 million barrels of oil a year, roughly 5% of Russia’s total refinery output. Strikes on several other refineries this month may have depressed Russian petroleum product production by more than a tenth.

Refineries can be repaired. But Ukraine can always send more drones. In three years of relentless work, Ukrainian industry has developed more than a dozen different models of long-range strike drone, including modified sport planes that routinely haul hundreds of pounds of explosives as far as 800 miles and strike with pinpoint accuracy. Other drone models can travel more than 1,000 miles.

Compared to the presumably multimillion-dollar cost of rebuilding a refinery, a drone—even a swarm of drones—is cheap. The Aeroprakt A-22 sport planes the Ukrainians transform into attack drones sell for around $130,000.

I think that this might turn out to have been the biggest turnabout yet in the now 11-year-old U.S. proxy-war in the battlefields of Ukraine to capture Russia. At the very least, it is the biggest-yet successful U.S. (or “Ukrainian”) offensive operation in this war.

Brian Berletic, on January 21st, might even have unknowingly identified the source of these drones. He headlined “Anduril’s ‘Arsenal 1’ and ‘Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy’”, and reported about

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR – a virtual reality headset manufacturer – and now founder of arms manufacturer Anduril. Luckey believes that Anduril will be able to “hyperscale” production of autonomous aircraft, maritime vessels, and munitions to “rebuild the arsenal of democracy,” and lend victory to the US in a future great-power conflict with China.

Anduril drones have already been used over the battlefield in Ukraine, a peer-conflict the US is waging against Russia by proxy. Those drones have failed to grant Ukraine any advantage as its forces face a total collapse of fighting capacity, losing heavily defended territory to advancing Russian forces at an accelerated rate across the entire line of contact. …

In a January 17, 2025 interview with Bloomberg Technology, Luckey described the building of “Arsenal 1,” Anduril’s first “hyperscale” production facility. Based in Ohio, Luckey claims it will provide up to 4,000 jobs over the course of the next 10 years and produce 1,000s of Anduril “defense products” including cruise missiles and autonomous warplanes.

Luckey sells “Arsenal 1” as a vision of not only revolutionizing US-based military manufacturing, but as a means of compensating for China’s vast industrial base and growing military might. To fully achieve this vision, however, Luckey insists on the US “leveraging the whole of the nation,” to face and overcome the threat he claims China poses.

On 14 December 2023, Bloomberg News headlined “Peter Thiel's Palantir, Anduril Struggle to Break Into European Defense Market”, and reported:

When war broke out in Ukraine, Palantir and Anduril expanded aggressively in Europe, expecting that countries’ interest in modernizing their militaries would translate into splurging on Silicon Valley’s latest wares. “That hasn’t come true,” said Ulrike Franke, a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations. …

Anduril staff landed in Ukraine two weeks after Russia’s invasion to help Ukraine’s military deploy the company’s autonomous drones. Luckey visited later that summer, posting on social media that “having the best technology” could have prevented the war. “The right time to take arms is before the killing starts,” he wrote.

Palantir offered software that analyzes satellite imagery and drone movements for free to the Ukrainian government, and a significant number of staff temporarily relocated to the war zone. In April, the firm signed an agreement with Ukraine’s Prosecutor General to provide data processing services to facilitate investigations into Russian war crimes, and has also forged a partnership with the government to assist with post-war reconstruction efforts.

The US defense tech sector has ballooned in recent years as the US military has seeded new companies in an effort to modernize its weaponry, and venture capitalists have followed suit, pouring $135 billion into defense tech startups from 2016 to 2022, according to PitchBook. Defense technology companies have also bucked the trend of diminished fundraising rounds this year. US defense systems developer Shield AI raised $200 million at the end of October at a valuation of $2.7 billion, and drone startup Skydio managed to pull in $230 million at a $2.2 billion valuation in February. On the other side of the Atlantic, Helsing raised €209 million in funding in September.

Since Russia’s invasion, many of these fledgling companies spotted an opportunity to showcase their work. Waves of startups rushed into Ukraine with drones, sensors, satellites and artificial intelligence software.

But as the war drags on, tech providers haven’t seen their initial outreach in Ukraine evolve into contracts with other European nations or meaningful revenue from allied countries. So far, Palantir has earned just north of $1 million from the United States Defense Department for its work in Ukraine, and donated the rest of its services. …

Perhaps these billionaires are behind the turnaround in the Ukraine war. If these are Luckey’s drones, then his drones could turn out to be very lucky for the post-2014 Ukrainian government’s master, the U.S. regime itself. America’s billionaires could continue growing their personal wealth much faster than the rest of the population by investing this way, in the further expansion of their empire

Whatever the drones’ source is, these drones are now clearly having a huge impact on this war (though an impact that hasn’t yet affected the front lines of the war in Ukraine), and present a huge challenge that Russia will need to address immediately, if the current course of this war toward an ultimate Russian victory is not to be turned instead — and shockingly — into Russia’s defeat and becoming America’s biggest colony.

PS: If you like this article, please email it to all your friends or otherwise let others know about it. None of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will likely publish it (nor link to it, since doing that might also hurt them with Google or etc.). I am not asking for money, but I am asking my readers to spread my articles far and wide, because I specialize in documenting what the Deep State is constantly hiding — what the ‘news’-media ignore if they can, and deny if they must. This is, in fact, today’s samizdat.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.