Ukraine struck the Kavkaz port petroleum complex in Krasnodar Krai during the 20 June strike wave1. Kavkaz is a Black Sea crude and oil-product export terminal on the Kerch Strait, and hitting it widens Ukraine's target set from refineries that feed domestic forecourts to the infrastructure that ships crude abroad. The refinery strikes squeezed Russian motorists; an export-terminal strike reaches toward the hard-currency side of the trade.
The two halves of the campaign work on different timelines. Refinery outages bite domestically within days, because Russia burns its own refined product. Export-terminal damage bites at earnings, the revenue stream sanctions have been chipping at from the regulatory side. The same campaign that reached deep into Siberia and rationed Crimean fuel is now testing both ends of Russia's oil economy at once, the pump and the port.
