Ukraine launches some of its deepest attacks into Russia
Semafor Signals
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Insights from The Kyiv Independent, Financial Times, and Carnegie Politika
The News
Ukraine struck a Russian drone factory and a major Russian oil refinery 800 miles from Ukrainian-held territory in Kyiv’s latest salvo in its long-range strike campaign.
The drone attacks are some of the deepest strikes into Russia so far, the Russian independent outlet Agenstvo reported.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency targeted a manufacturing plant for Shahed-type drones, an official told The Kyiv Independent. The plant was set up in collaboration with Iran to build 6,000 drones annually by the summer of 2025, The Washington Post reported.
The attack on Russia’s third-largest oil refinery is not believed to be critical, according to Reuters. The strikes injured some people in the industrialized region of Tatarstan, but did not do “serious damage” to the plants’ production levels, Rustam Minnikhanov, Tatarstan’s leader wrote on Telegram.
SIGNALS
Ukraine hones in on Russia’s oil sector
Ukraine has launched dozens of drones and rockets through March, primarily targeting oil refineries to hurt the Russian economy. While the drones that Kyiv is using are unlikely to destroy entire refineries, they can damage specialized equipment such as compressors and control units that are hard to replace due to Western sanctions, Sergey Vakulenko wrote for Carnegie Politika, noting that repairs that would have taken a few weeks before the war are now expected to take months. Kyiv has managed to disrupt at least 10% of Russia’s oil refining capacity, impacting the country’s domestic fuel market, the British Ministry of Defense said. The attacks also force the Kremlin to decide whether to move air defenses away from the frontlines to protect key economic assets, Foreign Policy reported.
US has concerns about Kyiv’s long-range strike campaign
The U.S. has reportedly pressed Ukraine to stop attacking Russia’s energy infrastructure over concerns that Russia could sabotage Western energy infrastructure in retaliation, the Financial Times reported. “The reaction of the U.S. was not positive on this,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told The Washington Post. But other Western officials, including Sweden’s defense minister, said, “Ukraine has the right to defend itself,” and the head of NATO said that Ukraine has the right to strike military targets in Russia.
AI helps Ukrainian drones find their targets
Ukraine’s strike campaign has been enabled by a rapidly-developing domestic drone industry, which has begun making longer-range drones with rudimentary forms of AI capabilities, CNN reported. Artificial intelligence allows the drones to navigate based on the terrain rather than satellite communications. The move to develop drones with machine vision comes in response to dramatic improvements in Russia’s jamming capabilities, allowing its troops to sever contact between Ukrainian operators and their drones. But AI-powered targeting allows drones to continue toward their targets even if the connection to their operator is cut, Rostyslav Olenchin, co-founder of Twist Robotics, told The Washington Post.
