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Where Ukraine Strikes Russia: The Geography, Logic, and Priorities of Its Attacks

Ukraine’s strikes inside Russia have evolved from isolated blows against military and energy targets into a systematic campaign aimed at constricting the infrastructure that sustains Russia’s war economy.

Куди б’є Україна по Росії: географія, логіка та пріоритети ударів

Texty.org.ua · By Олександр Шульман; Олег Гебура · 20 April 2026 · read the original in Ukrainian →

ArticlesСтатті

Where Ukraine Strikes Russia: The Geography, Logic, and Priorities of Its Attacks

Sleepless nights and the groans of Russians along the lines of “But what did we ever do to deserve this?!” are becoming routine in many regions of the Russian Federation. Strikes on Russian oil terminals point to a new phase in the campaign: systematic pressure on export infrastructure. Key ports on the Baltic and Black seas have come under fire, and their synchronized disruption creates a bottleneck effect for the entire supply system. In the end, this is no longer simply about damaging individual facilities, but about deliberately limiting Russia’s ability to export oil and therefore to obtain the resources it needs to wage war.

Narrated with the help of AI in the voice of Valeria PavlenkoОзвучено за допомогою ШІ голосом Валерії Павленко

We downloaded and analyzed posts from the Russian Telegram channel Radar po vsey Rossii (@radarrussiia), which issues air-raid alerts, to see how the war is returning to the territory of the aggressor. Russia has no official centralized resource for announcing air alerts, so the true numbers and duration of threats may be even higher; even so, these data clearly show that quiet nights are a thing of the past for many Russians.

It can be said that, thanks to the work of Ukraine’s defense industry and help from partners, 2025-2026 have turned strikes on Russia’s energy and oil sector into a systematic campaign with a clear geography and an equally clear logic. The main axes of strikes are the border regions, the central part of the Russian Federation, and the deep rear, with its critical and industrial infrastructure.

Russia Does Not SleepРосія не спить

There are not merely more alerts; the attacks are designed to exhaust. Danger is usually announced closer to midnight and lasts until five or six in the morning. Whereas in the autumn of 2023 alerts lasted an average of 40 minutes, now, in 2026, they last three or four hours a day.

Air-raid alerts in RussiaПовітряні тривоги в Росії

The more saturated the color, the more regions in which an air-raid alert was declared

The attacks themselves have also increased. In the spring of 2026, the number of reports of drone attacks rose sharply and may reach 150 in a single day.

Number of air-raid alert reports by type of threatКількість повідомлень про повітряні тривоги за типами загроз

Monthly dynamics of attack warnings in Russian regions

Missile attacks, by contrast, have noticeably declined since the start of 2025, shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Interestingly, at the same time Russia increased the number of strikes against Ukraine; read more about this in our article here.

Number of attack reportsКількість повідомлень про атаки

Average number of UAV and missile warnings (seven-day moving average) UAVs Missiles

Alerts are most often declared in Volgograd, Kaluga, and Saratov oblasts. There they last, on average, more than four hours. In Moscow Oblast, for example, the average duration of alerts is more than two hours.

The Borderlands: A Zone of Tactical EffectПрикордоння: зона тактичного впливу

Ukrainian drones operate most intensively against the regions that directly border Ukraine: Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk oblasts. Recently, Voronezh and Rostov oblasts have been added to this list, as has Krasnodar Krai: drone launchers operate from there, airfields hosting enemy aviation are located there, and oil depots and ammunition warehouses are concentrated there.

This is fairly obvious: minimum distance means maximum frequency, and less time to intercept our means of attack, whether missiles or drones. Here we strike regularly, and this affects the aggressor’s tactical and, in part, operational capabilities. Targets include ammunition depots, air-defense positions, logistics hubs, and facilities that support troop groupings near the front. In essence, this is the transfer of combat operations deep into Russian territory and, one might say, the expansion of the kill zone.

Average duration of air-raid alerts by region 15 regions with the longest alerts Central Russia: A Demonstration of Vulnerability

The second important axis of strikes is the central regions, in particular Moscow and Moscow Oblast. Kaluga, Tula, Tver, and Smolensk oblasts also come under attack.

If earlier attacks on the Russian capital were more symbolic in nature, something like the strikes on Berlin in the summer of 1941, lately they have become regular. The aim is not so much the physical destruction of facilities as the creation of systemic pressure, including disruption of airport operations with endless “carpet” alerts, when no aircraft flies anywhere, which translates into losses in the millions, an overload on forces, and the expenditure of air-defense ammunition.

Another very important factor is the psychological effect on what adequate people call brains. Russians see that even the most protected areas are vulnerable.

The Deep Rear: Strikes on the EconomyГлибокий тил: удари по економіці

A separate and strategically most important axis is strikes on industrial regions deep inside Russia. This means Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Saratov, and Volgograd oblasts, as well as Tatarstan.

These regions contain key oil refineries, chemical plants, and energy facilities. Strikes against them have a long-term purpose: reducing the production of fuel, raw materials for gunpowder and gunpowder itself, and explosives; complicating logistics; and creating economic pressure on the Russian Federation’s war machine and on the economy as a whole.

It should be noted, however, that the Russians restore oil refineries fairly quickly and are building protective elements around them. For that reason, reports of refineries being hit have recently disappeared from the news.

It is telling that many such facilities are attacked not once or twice, but repeatedly. This testifies to the systematic nature and priority of this direction, as well as to the Russians’ inability to protect them.

Limiting ExportsОбмеження експорту

Another axis of strikes deserves separate attention, one that is gradually leading to critical consequences. These are strikes on oil terminals, which affect the export capacity of Russian oil.

In addition to the refineries themselves, important elements of oil transport and export infrastructure have come under Ukrainian drone attack: oil depots, transshipment hubs, pumping stations, and facilities connected to trunk oil pipelines. Even if damage to such nodes does not paralyze the system completely, the strikes significantly reduce throughput and force export flows to be redistributed.

This has several consequences: stable exports through ports become more difficult, the costs of logistics and restoration rise, delays emerge in the supply of crude and petroleum products, and the overall efficiency of the energy sector declines.

As a result, even without the complete destruction of major facilities, a systemic effect is achieved: a partial restriction of export potential, which directly affects the Russian Federation’s foreign-currency revenues.

The South and the Caucasus: Infrastructure and PortsПівдень і Кавказ: інфраструктура і порти

Less intensive but regular strikes are also recorded in the southern regions, in particular Krasnodar Krai, Astrakhan Oblast, and the North Caucasus. The focus here is on oil depots, transport infrastructure, and facilities connected with resource exports. Military facilities, including airfields, also sometimes become targets.

Long-Range Strikes: The Effect of ReachДалекі удари: ефект досяжності

From time to time, Ukrainian drones reach far more distant regions as well, from Leningrad Oblast to areas near the Caspian Sea. Such attacks occur less often, but they have an important effect.

They demonstrate range and the ability to hit facilities at great depth. Often these are unique or especially important targets: major oil and gas facilities or enterprises of the military-industrial complex.

The Logic of the CampaignЛогіка кампанії

Despite the broad geography, the strikes are not chaotic. A clear structure of priorities can be traced:

the borderlands, to influence the course of combat operations;

fuel and energy infrastructure, for economic attrition;

export logistics, to reduce foreign-currency revenues;

military facilities, such as airfields and air defense, to reduce combat capabilities;

Moscow, as a political and psychological target.

Strikes on Russian Oil Terminals: UAVs Are Hitting Exports, Not Merely Facilities

Recent strikes by Ukrainian drones on Russian territory reveal a fundamentally new logic in the campaign. Whereas earlier the blows fell mainly on military targets or border infrastructure, oil terminals and other key nodes through which the aggressor earns money by exporting energy resources are now at the center of attention.

This is a series of coordinated strikes on several critically important ports, above all on the Baltic and Black seas.

The Baltic axis has become one of the main ones. In late March and early April, drones repeatedly attacked the port of Ust-Luga, one of Russia’s largest oil hubs. The strikes were accompanied by fires on terminal grounds, damage to storage tanks, and damage to transshipment infrastructure. At the same time, another key Baltic port, Primorsk, through which crude oil is exported, also came under attack.

The consequences of such strikes extend far beyond local damage. Even the partial disabling of storage tanks or loading nodes immediately reduces shipment volumes. Delays arise, routes change, restrictions accumulate, and overall exports fall as a result. In effect, it is enough to hit several key points for the entire system to begin functioning worse.

Thus, after a strike on the Black Sea export axis, the Russians encountered quite a few problems. In early April, our UAVs once again attacked the Sheskharis oil terminal in Novorossiysk. This is one of Russia’s key ports on the Black Sea, and it is there that the remnants of the Black Sea Fleet, which fled the “city of Russian glory,” Sevastopol, are hiding. Damage to berth infrastructure, disruptions in the operation of pumping systems, and fires led to temporary restrictions on the terminal’s functioning. Given its role in exports, even short-term disruptions immediately affect overall supply volumes.

What matters is not only where the strikes are delivered, but also how they are combined. The Baltic and Black Sea axes came under attack at the same time; attacks on Ust-Luga, Primorsk, and Novorossiysk occurred almost synchronously, creating a synergistic pressure effect on the entire export system. This sharply narrowed the room for maneuver.

As a result, the problem is no longer individual damaged facilities, but the reduced throughput of the entire system.

Average duration of air-raid alerts by monthСередня тривалість повітряних тривог за місяцями

This is precisely the main change in the tactics of drone strikes: they are directed less and less at “spectacular” destruction and more and more at creating systemic economic pressure. Oil terminals are, in this sense, an ideal target, because they combine logistics, exports, and financial revenues. Unlike oil refineries or fields, maritime terminals have a critical feature: they are the end point of the entire system. It is here that oil is transformed from a resource into money.

If a plant can be partly bypassed and flows redirected, the situation with ports is far more complicated: there are few of them, each has its own specialization and throughput capacity, and each is unique.

This means that even local damage creates an effect that is difficult to compensate for. Other ports are quickly overloaded, logistics become more complicated, and as a result export schedules begin to slip, while shadow tankers are increasingly intercepted by allies. The characteristic feature of the latest attacks is not the complete destruction of facilities. It is enough to disable one or two tanks, start a fire, damage a pumping station or the power-supply system, and the terminal is already operating in a restricted mode or stops for a time. It is precisely this “economy of the strike” that makes the campaign effective: relatively small means achieve a disproportionately large result.