REPORT: Ukraine strikes the Ufa refinery for the second time in a few weeks

The Russian space program is no longer spared

According to additional reports from several media outlets, a facility linked to the Russian space agency Roscosmos was also reportedly among the targets of this wave of Ukrainian attacks, further broadening the range of Russian infrastructure now considered legitimate targets by Kyiv as part of its long-range strike strategy against the Russian military-industrial complex.

This expansion of the scope of targets—from oil to missiles to the space sector—reflects an increasingly comprehensive Ukrainian doctrine, which holds that any infrastructure contributing, even indirectly, to the Russian war effort constitutes a legitimate military target under international law of armed conflict. Western military legal experts consulted by several specialized media outlets point out that this classification remains a matter of debate, as certain dual-use civilian and military infrastructure raises complex questions of proportionality under international humanitarian law applicable to contemporary armed conflicts.

Expanding the list of targets to include Russia’s space sector marks a significant doctrinal escalation that few Western observers had anticipated even a year ago.

Eleven refineries hit in a single month

These twin strikes on Ufa and Penza are part of a pattern of operations that has accelerated significantly since June, a period during which the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claimed to have struck eleven different Russian oil refineries, according to data cited by Reuters. This sustained pace contrasts with the more sporadic waves of long-range strikes observed during the early years of the conflict.

According to Bloomberg, Ukraine’s strike capabilities now cover nearly half of Russian territory—a statistic that would have seemed unrealistic at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, when Ukraine was still struggling to defend its own borders against the initial advance of Russian troops.

The shift from a desperate defense of its borders in 2022 to a strike capability covering half of Russian territory in 2026 alone underscores the scale of Ukraine’s military transformation throughout this war.

“No infrastructure is beyond reach anymore”

Striking the same refinery twice in a matter of weeks sends a clear message to Moscow: the rapid reconstruction of such infrastructure—often presented by Russian propaganda as proof of national resilience—no longer guarantees lasting protection against new Ukrainian strikes. This deliberate repetition directly undermines the Russian narrative of industrial resilience in the face of Western sanctions and strikes.

The strategic message is crystal clear: no Russian oil or military infrastructure, regardless of its distance from the Ukrainian front, can now consider itself permanently out of reach of the strike capabilities developed by the Ukrainian defense industry over the past few months.

This message sent to Moscow goes far beyond the purely military dimension: it is a psychological statement directed at the entire Russian industrial complex, which is now forced to live with constant uncertainty.

Satellite facility repeatedly struck, according to local sources

According to reports from regional media, the satellite site in Dubna was also reportedly struck again during a recent wave of Ukrainian attacks, confirming a pattern of repeated strikes on facilities that had already been targeted previously, rather than simply adding new targets with each new operation.

This strategy of repeated strikes on already known targets also allows Ukraine to indirectly gauge the actual effectiveness of the repairs and protective measures implemented by Russia since the first strike, providing valuable feedback to refine future similar operations.

This approach of using repeated strikes as a tool to gauge Russian repair capabilities illustrates a level of analytical sophistication that is rarely—and wrongly—attributed to the Ukrainian armed forces in Western media coverage.

Real economic pressure, but not decisive on its own

Despite the accumulation of these repeated strikes, it would be an exaggeration to claim that Russia’s refining capacity is collapsing solely as a result of their cumulative effect. Russia retains rapid repair capabilities—often underestimated by Western observers—as well as alternative supply chains that allow it to partially limit the economic impact of each individual strike on its overall war economy.

This reality once again calls for a nuanced interpretation: each strike marginally weakens the Russian war machine without ever, on its own, constituting a fatal blow capable of ending the conflict solely through economic pressure on Russia’s oil and military industries.

I am consistently skeptical of narratives that portray each new strike as heralding an imminent collapse of the Russian war economy. The reality is a slower and more cumulative process than some headlines suggest.

An economic warfare strategy planned over several months

Military analysts cited by several Western agencies note that this strategy of repeated strikes on targets that have already been hit is part of a long-term economic warfare plan spanning several months, rather than a series of ad hoc operations improvised based on tactical opportunities identified on the ground by Ukrainian intelligence.

This long-term planning requires sustained intelligence capabilities, enabling the Ukrainian military leadership to closely monitor the progress of repairs carried out by Russia at each previously struck site, in order to determine the optimal time to strike the same industrial facility a second or even a third time.

Reconstruction costs that weigh heavily on Moscow

Each repeated strike also imposes an additional reconstruction cost on the Russian budget, which is already under pressure due to the cumulative Western sanctions imposed since 2022 and the need to simultaneously finance the war effort on the Ukrainian front and the ongoing reconstruction of its own national energy infrastructure.

This cumulative budgetary pressure, although rarely quantified precisely in publicly available reports, constitutes, according to several Western economists, a significant drain on the Russian war economy in the medium and long term. Some financial analysts even estimate that the cumulative cost of these repeated reconstruction efforts could, over several years, far exceed the initial investments made by Moscow to build that same oil infrastructure in the first place—a calculation that is now fueling internal debates within the Russian economic apparatus itself regarding the long-term viability of this protracted war of attrition.

This economic war of attrition—less spectacular than ground combat but just as decisive—deserves far more systematic coverage in the Western media than it currently receives.

Ufa and Penza: Symbols of a Methodical Campaign

This double strike on Ufa and Penza confirms a fundamental trend observed over the past several months: Ukraine is now waging a methodical and repetitive campaign against Russia’s oil and military-industrial infrastructure, sometimes striking the same targets multiple times to maximize the cumulative effect of its long-range operations.

A war being fought far from the front lines

This reality serves as a reminder that the outcome of the conflict is no longer being decided solely in the trenches of the Donbas, but also in the refineries of Siberia and Bashkortostan, where every documented fire further redraws the map of the structural vulnerabilities of the Russian war economy.

I cannot stress this enough: this industrial war—invisible to most Western observers focused on the ground front lines—could well prove, in the long run, just as decisive as the fighting itself.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist