NATO must stand firm against Russian provocation

Today an aerial war is being fought across Europe. It is reliant on cutting edge technology, the full potential of which has yet to be realised. This undeclared war is most obviously witnessed in daily attacks by drones striking far into Russia and Ukraine. Some devices are unarmed decoys to deflect attention. Others, such as those of Kyiv’s 14th Regiment of Unmanned Aviation, carry increasingly heavy payloads to disable railway lines, industrial plants, pipelines, power networks and oil refineries. The same concepts have spread to sea with remotely-guided, unmanned speed boats deployed against Russian shipping, harbours and bridges. Ukraine’s choice of targets echo those bombed by the Allied strategic bombing forces in 1944. 

Implementation of Eisenhower’s Transportation Plan of April-June 1944 against bridges, rail centres, including marshalling yards and repair shops in France severely limited the Wehrmacht’s land response to D-Day. The allied Oil Plan was first launched at hideous cost against the Ploiești oilfields, Romania, in 1943, continued by the Eighth, Ninth and Fifteenth US Air Forces and RAF Bomber Command until late 1944, and encompassed assaults on all Axis refineries, synthetic-fuel factories, storage depots and other petroleum-linked infrastructure. By 1945, it had caused the German war machine to grind to a halt. 

Both World War Two allied aerial plans have been resuscitated by Kyiv, while Moscow’s ground and air defences appear to be struggling to keep up. International news media are reporting that 22 of the Russian Federation’s 38 large refineries, where crude oil is converted into petrol and diesel, were hit in August and September, with multiple sorties against most of them. Some attacks saw drones, supported by SBU special forces sabotage units, penetrate deep inside Russia. 

Early in October witnesses saw flames leap from the Kirishnefteorgsintez oil refinery outside St Petersburg, while the previous month the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat refinery in Bashkortostan, more than 700 miles from Ukraine’s frontier, was hit twice. The large Ryazan oil plant near Moscow, capable of producing 340,000 barrels per day, has been struck five times since January. The Korobkovsky gas processing plant outside Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), the largest plant for processing natural gas and associated petroleum gas in southern Russia, and the nearby Yefimovka production dispatch facility, were enveloped by explosions on 8 October, while two of three petroleum plants in distant Samara as well as eight others have been forced to suspend operations altogether. 

As a result of these unmanned attacks, Reuters suggests, on certain days Russian national gasoline output has declined by as much as a fifth, causing huge tailbacks at filling stations. Fuel rationing has been introduced in occupied Crimea, while most small and independent petrol stations in Siberia, St Petersburg and Moscow have shut due to ongoing supply issues. Fuel, already 40 percent higher per litre since January, has become virtually unobtainable for non-government vehicles. The rigidly censored domestic media can only hint that drone strikes are to blame, with the newspaper Kommersant attributing the shortfall to “unscheduled refinery shutdowns,” and acknowledging there was “a partial ban on petrol exports, which has been extended to the end of 2025.”

Western experts believe Zelensky’s oil campaign alone will not bring Russia to its knees, but is certainly increasing Putin’s pain and the inconvenience to his people. Were the impact of the strikes strengthened by further measures, including stronger sanctions against Western imports of Russian oil and gas products, including those via third-party countries, and the impounding of Moscow’s fleet of around 1,000 “shadow tankers,​​” registered to obscure bodies, and by which the Russians evade oil sanctions, then the Kremlin’s ability to continue their war against Ukraine would be undermined. As it is, Russia’s oil exports, chiefly to China, India and Turkey, in the form of unrefined crude oil, of which the Kremlin is allowed by OPEC to produce 9.415 million barrels per day, are at a record high. However, the state pipeline firm Transneft, which handles more than 80 percent of all the crude oil pumped in Russia, has warned producers to accept lower volumes, due to Ukrainian drone strikes. 

Putin has directed the state Duma to make up some of the financial shortfall by increasing business taxes and the rate of income tax for the wealthiest to 60 percent. However, in Russia’s Kafkaesque state, some of this money will merely flow back into the pockets of Putin’s Duma cronies who voted for the increase. A stark reminder of what then happens arrived this week when Spain forcibly seized five luxury villas owned by Nikolai Kolesov, CEO of Russian Helicopters. This followed an investigation by the late Alexei Navalny’s team of investigators into the siphoning of Russian defence assets into shell companies and their subsequent purchase of two jets, a helicopter, and overseas property in Mallorca registered in the names of Kolesov’s sister and two children, aged seven and four. While the role of individuals in money laundering may be contested, it remains a fact that Russian oligarchs as a group are the top property investors across Europe.

Putin is angry and continues to punish Kyiv, most recently with strikes on Ukraine’s electricity and gas energy plants, ahead of winter. Among the targets of the 450 Russian drones and 30 missiles launched overnight on 9-10 October were also water pumping stations, underlining his callous targeting of civilians, whereas Ukraine’s efforts have always been against state war-making assets. With his failing economy, Putin has been attempting to enmesh his CRINK (the new acronym for the West’s opponents of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) allies into his war, in terms of personnel, technology or equipment. Smaller national contingents from Serbia, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Somalia, India and, as revealed in U.S. State Department analysis on 5 October up to 5,000 Cuban fighters, have also been reported in Ukraine under Russian command.

The Kremlin depends on permanent escalation, giving the constant impression that Russia is surrounded and besieged

Moscow is also determined to retaliate against those it sees as sustaining Ukraine, notably the Western nations of NATO and the EU. Putin’s power rests on convincing his own domestic audience that they are fighting for their very survival, as they had to against Napoleon and Hitler. The Kremlin depends on permanent escalation, giving the constant impression that Russia is surrounded and besieged, and capable of defence only if united under Putin’s leadership. This rhetoric of existential threat is the foundation of his authority, as it was for Stalin. Yet for such figures, stability can only expose the emptiness of their promises. Thus, if Moscow is not escalating, it is fragile; if Russia is not conquering, it is losing. The survival of the regime requires external conflict, as much as oxygen is necessary for breathing. This is why any pause in Putin’s aggression is only ever temporary, and why peace, for such a ruler, is not an option but a threat.

One new way the Russian regime has found to escalate is via drone incursions, with many mysterious overflights of EU members reported in recent weeks. On 10 September, a swarm of 23 Russian drones flew into Polish airspace. Although Belarus and even President Trump claimed this might have been a mistake, the fact that they lingered for seven hours and fifteen minutes suggests otherwise. NATO’s reaction was resolute. Dutch F-35s, Polish F-16s, an Italian airborne AWACS plane, supported by a Belgian A330 aerial tanker, shepherded them, and shot down four. German MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air systems based in Poland were also placed on high alert. This was the first direct encounter between NATO and Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Days later, NATO jets escorted three Russian warplanes out of Estonian airspace. Since then, drone intrusions have occurred near airports, military installations and critical infrastructure, across the continent and prompted European defence ministers to revise their intercept procedures and consider a protective drone wall along their borders. 

Munich Airport was closed twice in 24 hours during 2-3 October after drone sightings, which impacted numerous international flights. Operated by Russian sympathisers in Bavaria or Austria, of whom there are many, this was a repetition of incidents on 22 September, when drones flew around Copenhagen Airport, causing major chaos to air traffic. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen considered this “the most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date.” The Copenhagen culprit was soon identified as the 4,000-ton Russian Ropucha-class landing ship Aleksandr Shabalin, loitering nearby with its maritime transponder switched off. She had been in the area for several days, precisely coinciding with the period of intense drone activity over Danish airports and military sites. 

Shabalin was also escorting another drone platform, the 115,000-ton Russian “shadow tanker“ Boracay, which French special forces subsequently boarded in the Bay of Biscay on 1 October. Also known as Pushpa and Kiwala, she has been variously flagged to Malawi, Gambia, Djibouti, and latterly Benin, but linked to St Petersburg is sanctioned by UK and EU maritime authorities. Already detained by Estonian coast guards for 15 days whilst sailing without a valid country flag, and carrying a suspiciously Russian and Chinese crew bearing military haircuts, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov nevertheless denied any knowledge of the vessel. At President Macron’s direction, French prosecutors in Brest opened an investigation on two counts: refusing an order to stop, and failing to justify the nationality of the ship’s flag, though Boracay has now scarpered into the Atlantic. The same evening other drones overflew Oslo Airport, causing fresh disruption. Unmanned devices from the Shabalin or Boracay also overflew Danish military aerodromes, including the largest at Karup, on 24-25 September. In Kiel, Germany, multiple drones were spotted on 25 September over a power plant, the Heide oil refinery, and nosing around TKMS, a maritime defence technology provider. Others still were spotted over Sanitz military base, near Rostock. 

Russia traditionally respects strength, expressed by visible readiness and action

In its insecurity Russia, of course, denies any wrong-doing, which is precisely why it chose this new tactic, for it brings plausible deniability. These drone flights were not mistakes or local youths testing the boundaries of local laws, but studied assessments of NATO unity and resolve. Russia traditionally respects strength, expressed by visible readiness and action. It feels most comfortable when its actions are cloaked in ambiguity, operating in the “grey zone” of espionage, disinformation and hybrid sabotage. NATO’s strength is in its multinational unity of purpose, common doctrine and the commitment of its young men and women. There will be more geopolitical hurdles to overcome, but whenever Russia tests NATO, the response must be immediate, united, and overwhelming.