Ukraine appears to be attacking Russia's oil-and-gas industry with small, cheap drones that can bypass its air defenses
Ukraine appears to be attacking Russia's oil-and-gas industry with small, cheap drones that can bypass its air defenses
Russia's air defenses have proven to be less potent against small drones because they're meant to detect larger targets such as missiles and aircraft.
- Oil and gas facilities in Russia have caught fire in recent weeks following suspected drone attacks.
- In the latest attack, an oil refinery in the southwestern Volgograd region was ablaze on Saturday.
- Russia's air-defense systems have proven to be less effective against small drones.
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A drone that hits a storage tank containing billions of litres of flammable fuel is the best way to get a bang for the buck - especially because there are probably billions of litres more in other nearby tanks. Sound strategy.
Nitpick, but a storage tank isn't the best target.
IRC it's the distillation tower. Those can take months to get running again, especially now that Russia is under sanctions and can't easily source some specialised parts.
A storage tank is relatively easy to manufacture and replace.
It can get very nasty. Russians had to use water to extinguish the fire in one of those gas ports, it's freezing there and freezing water, well, expands. Which means that any pipe that wasn't burst by the explosion or bent by the fire is now bent by ice an the whole thing is leaking left and right. From what I understand practically a complete loss, they will have to build it from scratch.
That puts a smile on my face.
This person petroleums.