Russia and Ukraine widen air war against fuel, food and logistics networks

Russian drones struck roadside gas stations in Kyiv for a second straight day on Friday, September 11, killing and wounding civilians and underscoring a broader shift in the air war toward infrastructure that sustains daily life, logistics and wartime economies ahead of winter.¹

The attacks followed September 10 strikes on a Kyiv Ukrnafta petrol station and a Bunge agribusiness facility in Dnipro, which Reuters described as part of an intensifying Russian campaign against logistics and economic targets, including warehouses, food suppliers and retail chains.² Kyiv’s official city portal separately confirmed that a drone fell on the grounds of a gas station in the capital’s Holosiivskyi district on September 10, injuring four people.³

The targets are not only symbolic. Gas stations, food-processing plants, shopping centers, ports and transit hubs are civilian-facing nodes that also support mobility, supply and morale. Attacking them can disrupt commutes, emergency response, food distribution and local fuel availability while forcing Ukraine to spend scarce air-defense interceptors on lower-profile sites spread across cities and regions.²

Kyiv gas stations become repeated targets

On September 11, Russian drones hit two Kyiv gas stations in the Dniprovskyi and Obolonskyi districts within about 10 minutes, according to the Associated Press. AP cited Ukraine’s State Emergency Service as saying five people, including a rescuer, were wounded.¹ AP also reported that prosecutors said two Ukrnafta gas stations were hit, killing two people and wounding six at one site.¹

Ukrainian outlet DSnews, citing the State Emergency Service, reported fires at the September 11 attack sites, five wounded people including a rescuer, and damage to a vehicle in Obolonskyi district.⁴ The report said the rescuer was hurt in a repeat strike, a tactic Ukrainian emergency services have repeatedly warned can endanger first responders arriving after an initial impact.⁴

The previous day’s Kyiv strike appeared to mark an escalation in the capital. Reuters reported that the September 10 attack on an Ukrnafta petrol station seemed to be the first jet-powered drone strike on such a facility in Kyiv, after roughly 300 attacks on petrol stations in or near frontline regions in recent months.² The Kyiv City State Administration said the September 10 impact caused a fire and burned one car before responders extinguished the blaze.³

Food and supply chains are also in the target set

The same September 10 Russian strike wave hit a Bunge-run sunflower oil facility in Dnipro, killing two people and wounding five others, according to Reuters.² Reuters described the plant as one of Ukraine’s five largest food facilities, with capacity to process 1,600 tons of oilseeds per day.²

Al Jazeera, citing Ukrainian officials, reported at least 15 people killed across Ukraine in Thursday’s Russian attacks, including deaths in Pavlohrad, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Sumy and the Odesa region.⁹ The mix of targets — a food facility, a shopping center, a port city and a civilian tugboat — reinforced the pattern of strikes on places where civilian supply chains and wartime logistics overlap.⁹

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilian sites, Reuters reported.² But Ukrainian officials are reading the repeated strikes on fuel and commercial infrastructure as an attempt to raise the cost of ordinary activity and stretch the country’s air-defense coverage beyond major power plants and military sites.¹²

Ukraine pushes the same logic deep into Russia

Ukraine is pursuing its own pressure campaign against Russia’s energy system, but at much greater distances. Hromadske reported that Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said drones flew more than 3,000 kilometers to strike the Novy Urengoy and Purovsky gas-processing facilities in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets region, the deepest Ukrainian strike claimed in the war.⁵

The Institute for the Study of War assessed that the Yamalo-Nenets strikes showed Ukraine’s ability to reach Russian energy infrastructure across European Russia and beyond the Urals, exploiting Moscow’s difficulty in defending a vast rear area.⁶ ISW said the targeted facilities were roughly 2,780 to 2,840 kilometers from Ukraine’s border and that the attack hit one of Russia’s largest gas complexes.⁶

Ukraine’s deep strikes are intended to impose economic and logistical costs on Russia’s war machine by degrading refining, fuel distribution and energy-processing capacity. Unlike large missile barrages against city centers, these attacks can have cumulative effects: lower refinery throughput, disrupted exports, regional fuel constraints and higher transport costs.⁷

Fuel shortages show the pressure is no longer theoretical

Data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air suggest Ukrainian strikes are already affecting Russia’s fuel system. CREA reported that Russia’s seaborne oil-product export revenues fell 32% month-on-month in August to 78 million euros per day, the lowest level since the full-scale invasion. Oil-product imports surged to 172,000 tonnes, more than seven times the previous monthly high.⁷

CREA also reported that Russia, historically a major oil-product exporter, imported fuel from South Korea and bought gasoline refined in India from Russian crude, adding freight, transfer and insurance costs it would not face if domestic refining capacity were operating normally.⁷ AP cited CREA’s findings in reporting that Ukrainian strikes had caused fuel shortages in Russia, one of the world’s largest energy producers.¹

That dynamic is central to the emerging phase of the air war. Both sides are trying to make the other’s rear areas less reliable: Russia by targeting Ukraine’s urban fuel points, food processors, ports and commercial logistics; Ukraine by hitting Russian refineries, ports, gas plants and fuel distribution networks far beyond the front.²⁵⁷

Air defenses are the limiting factor

The campaign places acute pressure on Ukraine’s air defenses. Reuters reported that Kyiv has struggled to repel Russia’s recent attacks amid shortages of air-defense systems, while Canada announced a C$350 million package to help Ukraine acquire interceptors.²⁸ Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the package was intended to protect Ukraine’s people, infrastructure and skies. Reuters reported that Canada also pledged nearly C$435 million in loan guarantees for energy security, especially during winter.⁸

The timing is significant. As temperatures fall, Ukraine must defend not only power plants and substations but also fuel distribution, food storage, ports, rail nodes and dense urban commercial sites. Russia’s use of drones against dispersed civilian infrastructure can force Ukraine to choose where to deploy high-value interceptors and mobile fire teams.¹⁸

For Russia, the problem is geographic. Ukrainian drones reaching the Arctic gas heartland and Siberian refineries expose the challenge of defending energy assets across thousands of kilometers. ISW’s assessment suggests Moscow cannot fully cover that expanse with air defenses without weakening protection elsewhere.⁶

A war of systems, not only salvos

The September 10 and 11 strikes point to an air war increasingly defined by persistence rather than spectacle. Large missile barrages still matter, but the strategic logic is widening: damage the systems that allow civilians to move, businesses to operate, fuel to circulate, food to be processed and armies to remain supplied.

That makes the coming winter a test of resilience on both sides. Ukraine will try to keep cities, ports, fuel points and energy networks functioning under repeated drone attack. Russia will try to absorb deep Ukrainian strikes without allowing refinery damage and fuel shortages to disrupt military logistics or domestic stability.

The battlefield remains in eastern and southern Ukraine, but the infrastructure war is now being fought at gas pumps, food plants, ports and energy facilities thousands of kilometers apart.

Russia and Ukraine widen air war against fuel, food and logistics networks

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Source Material

Kyiv gas stations become repeated targets

Food and supply chains are also in the target set

Ukraine pushes the same logic deep into Russia

Fuel shortages show the pressure is no longer theoretical

Air defenses are the limiting factor

A war of systems, not only salvos

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