Russian average refinery throughput fell to 4.69 million barrels per day (mbpd) in late April, the lowest reading since December 2009. Tuapse refinery on the Black Sea coast was struck for the fourth time in two weeks on 1 May, with fires reigniting after the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry declared them out. Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Ukrainian strikes on two Russian shadow tankers off Novorossiysk on the Black Sea coast. Ukraine's drone forces commander told Meduza on 1 May that 'no part of Russia is safe from strikes'.
On the night of 2-3 May, Ukraine launched 334 drones into Russia against Russia's 268 drones at Ukraine, the first verified overnight reversal of the daily exchange ratio. The reversal sits beside three other shifts in the same week: the move past terminals to refineries to the offloading fleet itself; the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Transneft-Privolga strike ; and the underlying tempo build that produced the 22 April mass-launch outlier . Ukraine has now closed every leg of the Russian export chain inside one fortnight.
Pre-war Russian refining norms ran near 5.6 mbpd; the 4.69 mbpd reading implies roughly 0.9 mbpd of lost domestic processing. Russia is fighting an offensive without the petrol and diesel volume its own forces and economy require, and with the gasoline export ban active since the Kirishi shutdown earlier in April, Moscow cannot monetise the refined-product premium when crude is rerouted to export.
CEPA (Center for European Policy Analysis) and RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) put the 2025 strike campaign at 0.46% of Russian annual oil revenue . Two changes have moved that calculus: target diversification across the export chain and the breach of the daily exchange ratio. Zelenskyy told RBC-Ukraine Russia has lost at least $7 billion since January 2026 from long-range strikes, more than fifteen times the 2025 baseline.
