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Ukrainian air campaign against Russia's oil refining industry has been extremely effective, the magazine "Foreign Affairs" assessment states.

Hitting Russian refining infrastructure only brings benefits with little or even no risks. Russia's loss of refining products even pushes the Russian regime to extend crude oil exports and by doing so rather even pushing down crude oil prices, because it cannot store oil in large quantities. Shutting down oil wells is even more expensive. Repairs are costly, sometimes not feasible as well as time-consuming. Spare parts are in most cases on sanction lists. While oil prices worldwide are unaffected by the Ukrainian campaign, prices for refined oil products in Russia are rising. Aside from a higher strain for the war industry as well as for the army (logistics chains are getting even longer), it will actually cause much higher inflation as Russia has already.

Due to the re-import of refined oil products, Russia will be exposed to normal market prices, which for the average Russian, who never had to experience anything like this in the past - neither in the Soviet Union nor even in the 1990s - will come as a shock. What the news magazine forgot to mention is the political strain.

Russian oligarchs are increasingly losing money on an epic scale. The Putin system, however, is based on two pillars: favors and force. It was quite common that Putin compensated oligarchs for loyalty when those got hit by foreign sanctions, but those means are not infinite, especially during war. The less favors can be used, the more the regime has to use force, which in return will have a backlash. In the end, more and more people in the systems will silently question the soundness of Russia suicidal path and might feel increasingly inclined to ditch the dictator in the Kremlin. The fragile scale is getting out of balance. Either way, it only proves that Ukraine's air campaign against Russia's refining industry is an excellent strategy to exert massive pain against the the Russian regime and population. It is not a fast weapon, though we can already see the first side effects, but it is merciless one, which will yield tremendous results over a foreseeable period of time. In the end, Ukraine's air campaign has evolved into the most effective sanction against Russia. It is unlikely and would be unwise to give up on this.

 Source: https://foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/why-ukraine-should-keep-striking-russian-oil-refineries