Ukraine's drone campaign has crippled Russian diesel exports, undermining a deal struck between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to increase fuel supplies and relieve global price pressure ahead of the midterm elections.
Ukraine launched over 1,000 drones at Russian targets on Sunday alone, setting fire to an oil export terminal in St. Petersburg. The strikes targeted refineries and oil infrastructure after Kyiv abandoned a Trump-declared energy ceasefire that Moscow ignored from the outset. Tatiana Mitrova, an analyst at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, said Ukraine's drone strikes have achieved enough scale and effectiveness to cripple Russia's diesel exports. Before the attacks, Russia ranked as the world's second-largest diesel supplier after the U.S.
The scale of the campaign accelerated sharply. Ukraine conducted 31 strikes on Russian refineries and related oil infrastructure in July, compared to 11 in January, according to Rochan Consulting. Those attacks slashed Russian diesel exports by more than 75 percent, to 141,000 barrels per day in September versus 608,000 bpd the same period last year, per Kpler data. In response, Moscow banned exports in July to preserve domestic supplies before partially resuming shipments in October under the Trump-Putin arrangement.
The Trump deal promised global markets 75,000 bpd in October and 124,000 bpd in November. Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Kpler, stated those volumes are "a rounding error compared to total demand" and that "it seems unlikely that they'll be able to bring the volume of diesel back to the market that they are talking about without an energy ceasefire."
Ukraine's drone swarms have grown from dozens earlier in the war to hundreds now, with strikes reaching deeper into Russian territory. In July, Kyiv hit Russia's largest refinery at Omsk in Siberia, over 1,000 miles from Ukraine. Mitrova noted that Ukraine has learned to target more complex refinery equipment requiring international supply chains to replace. Secondary refining units require months to source because "you cannot just order it on Alibaba" when counterparties face sanctions risks.
Nationally, diesel averaged $6.32 per gallon on Tuesday, nearly 75 percent above the same period last year, according to AAA. Trump has blamed Ukraine for the surge. However, the market faced prior pressure from Trump's February escalation with Iran. Houthi attacks on tankers and Iranian strikes on Gulf Arab oil infrastructure reduced Middle Eastern diesel exports by about 540,000 bpd compared to last year. Global diesel exports fell roughly 1 million bpd from lost Russian and Middle Eastern supplies combined.
The International Energy Agency warned this month that diesel supplies will likely remain constrained into 2027. Smith said "the diesel tightness is likely going to persist in the coming months and prices are going to remain elevated."