As the American summer driving season kicks off this weekend, Ukrainian war planners are fine-tuning their response to Biden Administration requests to lay off Russian oil refineries and depots. The requests started in late March as Biden Administration officials feared the political impact of high gasoline prices during the election season.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reportedly conveyed that message to President Zelensky in a closed-door meeting at Kyiv on March 20. Two weeks later, the secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, went public, warning that attacks on Russian refineries could have “a knock-on effect in terms of the global energy situation.” 

He told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that Ukraine is “better served in going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight.”

In the following three months, Ukrainian drones and home-made cruise missiles carried out 11 major attacks on Russian refineries and oil depots, Reuters reports. Since that tally was posted on Tuesday, Ukraine attacked three more oil targets. One, a tank farm in Azov, was still burning as of last night. 

In the first three months of this year, Ukraine targeted Russian oil and gas export terminals as far away as St. Petersburg. After the warnings came from Washington, Ukraine’s military largely has targeted little known terminals and depots that directly feed Russia’s war machine. 

Attacks on these oil installations “significantly complicate the enemy forces’ ability to carry out their missions,” Ukraine’s military General Staff said in a statement last week.

The statement was prompted by a successful drone raid June 5 on the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in the Rostov-on-Don region. The military said: “According to intelligence reports, as a result of the strike, the invaders lost 1.5 million metric tons of oil and petroleum products, which amounts to about $540 million.”  

Rostov’s governor, Vasily Golubev, told the Interfax news agency that the attack caused a fire and “significant disruptions.” Reuters reported the fire forced the plant to suspend operations.

During the first two months of this year, Ukraine’s drone campaign was so effective that on March 1 Russia slapped a 6-month ban on gasoline exports. However, by mid-May, pressure had eased on major refineries and Russia was able to lift the pause until July 1.

Russia is the world’s second largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia. For American drivers this summer, Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s oil refineries and depots seems to have no impact. 

The American average retail gasoline price is $3.56 a gallon, down 3.5 percent from a year ago. More recently, since late April, the average American price has dropped by 6 percent.

To pinch the pipes to Russia’s frontlines, Ukraine largely uses indigenous missile and drone technology. The Biden Administration restricts use of the highly accurate, long range tactical ballistic missiles to Russian concentrations of troops and equipment just across the border from Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Sumy regions. 

To compensate for this, Ukraine now uses its Neptune missiles, which have a similar range —  200 miles.  Designed as anti-ship missile, the Neptunes have been reconfigured to hit land targets. Over the last three weeks, Neptunes have hit oil terminals and tank farms in three cities near Crimea.

The Neptunes targeted “areas in Russian territory that are within range of U.S.-provided” tactical missiles “but that are also protected by U.S. policy that has established a vast sanctuary in Russian territory,” reported Tuesday the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

On Wednesday night, Ukrainian drones hit the Afipsky refinery in the Krasnodar region, the Enem oil depot in Adygea Republic, and an oil depot in Platonovka, Tambov region. To many Russians, these place names mean little. The real impact comes with the smartphone videos of oily orange flames that increasingly are common on the Russian-language internet.

These flames could burn higher and brighter after this November. If American pressure lifts, Ukraine may well return to targeting Russia’s big export terminals for oil and refined products.

Before Ukraine’s shifted strategies last spring, it had disrupted up to 14 percent of Russia’s oil refinery capacity. Increasingly, Russia’s energy industry may find itself caught between a production squeeze and a consumer squeeze. 

Yesterday, the EU agreed to its first sanctions against Russian liquefied natural gas by targeting shipments of the super-chilled product. The deal bans Russian exporters from using EU ports to transfer gas between large tankers and smaller vessels destined for third countries. The new sanctions also block  European  financing for Russia’s planned Arctic and Baltic LNG terminals.

 Almost all of Russian LNG comes down from the Arctic in ice-class vessels. It is not profitable to steam further south to a non-EU port in, say, Morocco. The alternative would be to ship the gas along the Northern Sea Route, over the top of the  Eurasian continent. Since ice blocks that route for nine months out of the year, ice class LNG container vessels could be idle for three quarters of the year. 

Shrinking demand and shrinking supply does not bode well for a country that Senator McCain once called “a gas station masquerading as a country.”