On the morning of June 18, the Moscow Oil Refinery was targeted by Ukrainian drones in what appears to have been the largest aerial attack on the Russian capital since World War II.
The attacks coincided with a key summit of Group of Seven leaders in France, where world leaders reportedly secured the support of U.S. President Donald Trump for a strategy of increasing pressure on Putin in an effort to bring an end to Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.
The strike came just three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian forces ordered a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. During that assault, a church at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a 1,000-year-old UNESCO heritage site and one of the most significant landmarks in global Orthodox Christianity, was burned.
Footage from the attack on Moscow indicates that the refinery sustained substantial damage. News outlets had previously reported that the facility, which supplies nearly half of Moscow and the surrounding region, was shut down following an earlier attack on June 16.
Kyiv’s strategy has focused on destroying one of the Russian economy’s most important assets — oil refineries and fuel transportation hubs across Russia — as a means of depriving Putin of revenue needed to sustain the war effort.
Russia, for its part, continues to launch ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, using weapons that are difficult to intercept with scarce Patriot air defense missiles. Moscow says it targets military facilities, but this winter it effectively destroyed much of Kyiv’s heat-generation capacity, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians struggling to endure exceptionally low temperatures.
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Ukrainian attacks have at various times disrupted between 10% and 17% of Russia’s refining capacity, according to Reuters calculations, while repeated strikes on refineries, pumping stations and export terminals have forced millions of barrels per day of processing capacity offline. Industry data cited by Reuters show that more than 35 major refining units have been shut down by drone attacks or their aftermath since the start of 2026 alone, highlighting the growing pressure on one of the Kremlin’s most important sources of wartime revenue.
Eyewitnesses in Moscow recorded the following footage of the attack:
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Russia’s wartime economic boom is showing signs of exhaustion. While massive military spending helped drive growth in 2023 and 2024, economists increasingly warn that the model is becoming harder to sustain. The International Monetary Fund expects Russian GDP growth to slow sharply to around 1% in 2026, while high interest rates, labor shortages, inflationary pressures and falling energy revenues continue to weigh on the economy. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said this month that Russia has “lost standing” economically despite receiving a temporary boost from higher oil prices, arguing that years of war, sanctions and growing isolation are steadily eroding the country’s long-term economic prospects.
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