As Ukraine hits Russia's refineries, Russia targets Ukraine's petrol pumps

ByVitaly Shevchenko Chief Analyst, BBC Monitoring. 26 August 2026, 00: 50 BST.

Key points

• One Shahed drone is estimated to cost between $20, 000 (£14, 500) and $50, 000 (£36, 000).
• In total, Russia has hit at least 246 filling stations throughout Ukraine so far, states Oleksandr Sirenko, an analyst with Ukrainian energy think-tank Nafto Rynok ("Oil Market").
• In July alone, the Centre for Information Resilience, an open-source investigation non-profit group, verified 114 Russian strikes on filling stations, compared with 66 the month before.
• All petrol stations have reportedly been destroyed in Trostyanets, a town of almost 20, 000 individuals near the north-eastern border with Russia.
• "Fill up quickly and move on, " Mayor Ihor Terekhov warns drivers in Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv.

Two petrol stations in the city in Ukraine's north-east were hit by Russian drones on Monday. It local authorities say wounded two residents. In another attack on a petrol station outside the city of Kryvyi Rih last week, three individuals were killed.

Russia's campaign of targeting civilian filling stations with drones and missiles began in earnest in April, primarily in regions on the front line, and the attacks are steadily growing more frequent.

Meanwhile, Russia has endured two waves of severe fuel shortages nationwide since of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Given the threat, police have issued special guidance urging motorists to leave petrol stations and, if necessary, to abandon their vehicles whenever air raid alerts sound.

"You can fix your car, but you won't get your life back, " notes one police force in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The damage is highly disruptive and puts civilians at considerable risk.

According to Sirenko, initially the attacks were being carried out with smaller, remote-controlled drones, but then Russia began using bigger, more expensive and more destructive Iranian-made Shahed drones.

"One petrol station took five Shahed hits, " Sirenko tells the BBC. "These Shaheds cost more than the petrol station."

Some key roads have no functioning petrol stations left, such as the road linking the two major cities of Kharkiv and Dnipro.

All the petrol stations have been destroyed around Opishnya, a sizeable village in neighbouring Poltava region.

"You can see our enemy's strategy. They want to deprive us of fuel, " notes village chief Mykola Riznyk. In a video on Facebook, he notes local authorities have begun stocking up on fuel, keeping small amounts of it in different locations.

In Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, local resident and driver Kateryna Stokolya notes petrol stations everywhere are becoming far stricter concerning not working during air alerts.

"Now everyone's making allowances for that, and it's not a problem, " she tells the BBC. "Security comes first. If you can't fill up now, you'll fill up afterwards. There are no queues or panic buying."

Stokolya believes that, in carrying out attacks of this nature, Russia's intended goal is "terrorising the public so we force the government to capitulate or accept agreements that do not favour Ukraine".

In Ukrainian-controlled areas of the partly occupied Kherson region, almost half the petrol stations have halted working. The others obtain attacked by Russian drones "almost every day", states deputy regional administration head Oleksandr Tolokonnikov.

All petrol stations have reportedly been destroyed in Trostyanets, a town of almost 20, 000 individuals near the north-eastern border with Russia. In response, local authorities began dispensing fuel straight from road tankers which keep changing their location to minimise the chances of being hit. Ukrainians appear to be heeding the advice of authorities.

"Clients aren't browsing the aisles anymore, looking at what we've got on our shelves, " notes Oleksandr Melnychuk, head of the strategic marketing department at BRSM Nafta chain of petrol stations. "They fill up and are keen to get on their way as soon as possible."

His firm has lost eight petrol stations and is rebuilding another two after they were hit.

To protect customers, BRSM Nafta has been building concrete shelters at its forecourts and additionally covering them in anti-drone nets. It has additionally shortened working hours and reduced the number of staff present in some locations.

Nevertheless, so far the drone strikes have not had a dramatic impact on fuel supplies. According to a report by the National Bank of Ukraine, 4% of the country's filling stations have been damaged or destroyed, but the impact on the market has been small.

"Increasing sales in regions which are further away from the front line or from the border with Russia have made up for sales lost at destroyed stations, " the report notes.

After Ukraine's campaign of attacks on Russian refineries and other infrastructure, the picture in Russia is particularly different.

Russia has seen fuel shortages in almost every region consequently. One popular newspaper in Russia, Izvestia, remarked last week that petrol was only available at 28% of Russian filling stations.

Unlike in Russia, Ukraine does not rely on vulnerable sizeable refineries and fuel depots, instead importing fuel by road using tanker trucks.

Ukraine's market is additionally saturated with numerous petrol stations. It usually offer drivers alternatives should one or a number of of them be targeted in a particular area, Sirenko notes.

"You curse and drive on to another petrol station. OK, you travel for 10km more than you bargained for, but that's not such a major challenge, " he notes.

If anything, it is the war between the US and Iran that is having a bigger impact on local fuel rates, he states. Normally, the most expensive parts of filling stations are left undamaged by Russian attacks, such as petrol and diesel tanks underground.

For now, as Ukraine hits Russia' s refineries, Russia targets Ukraine' s petrol pumps remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.