Black Sea institute: Ukraine has knocked out up to half of Russia’s oil-refining capacity, and the sea war needs to intensify

Russia has ramped up seaborne exports of crude because Ukrainian strikes have taken out as much as half of its oil-refining capacity. That was the account of Andrii Klymenko, head of the monitoring group at the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies and editor-in-chief of BlackSeaNews, at the International Forum of the Crimea Platform Expert Network.

“The Black Sea, along with the Baltic, is becoming the main region Russian oil ships out from,” he said. “That is a direct result of Ukrainian strikes on the refineries. The next step is to press harder at sea and block Russian capacity in the ports.”

Klymenko said that when foreign partners detain shadow-fleet tankers sailing without a flag, it amounts to theater, since policing those waters is the basic duty of any maritime state. Despite Ukraine’s efforts, he said, the tankers are released after a fine because holding them is so expensive.

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