Russia Turns to South Korean Fuel Imports as Drone Strikes Cut Refinery Runs to 24-Year Low
Ukrainian strikes have pushed Russian refinery throughput to its lowest since 2002, forcing Moscow to reverse course and source fuels from Asian spot markets.
Russia imported roughly 30,000 metric tons of fuels from South Korea in July 2026 — a trade flow that signals how far Ukrainian drone strikes have degraded the country's ability to supply itself with refined products, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler cited by Reuters.5
Bloomberg put Russian refinery throughput in July at 3.6 million barrels per day, more than 30% below the seasonal average and the lowest level since 2002. Ukraine says 40% of its long-range strike targets in 2025 were Russian refineries, and some estimates place the share of capacity knocked out, at least temporarily, at around 20%, representing a loss of well over one million barrels per day of processing, mainly gasoline but also diesel.5,1
Russia is still extracting crude at close to normal rates. Unnamed sources cited by Reuters put July output at over 9 million barrels per day, up by roughly 100,000 bpd from June's 8.93 million bpd average. The refinery throughput reading reflects a processing system that cannot keep pace with production.5
Jet fuel has become the most visible symptom. Russian jet fuel exports fell to roughly 13,000 barrels per day so far in 2026, down from approximately 30,000 bpd in 2025, according to Kpler data cited by Reuters. To cover the shortfall, Reuters reported that Russia is set to receive at least 200,000 barrels of jet fuel originating in Japan, routed through South Korea via a chain of intermediary traders and ship-to-ship transfers.3
NORSI, Russia's second-largest gasoline producer with a processing capacity of around 320,000 barrels per day, has been among the targeted plants. A primary distillation unit, CDU-6, which handles 25,700 metric tons per day and accounts for 53% of the facility's total capacity, was taken offline, according to data compiled by The Independent. The Moscow oil refinery also halted operations after a Ukrainian drone strike on June 16, 2026.4
The disruption has spread into the wider Caspian export corridor. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium suspended crude loadings from July 20, 2026, after attacks on oil tankers at its Black Sea terminal. Kazakhstan, which routes most of its crude exports through that pipeline, was forced to slash production by roughly 50% in July 2026.5,4
ICE Brent crude front-month was at $87.20 per barrel as of August 10, 2026. Urals crude stood at $79.19 per barrel the same date, a discount of roughly $8 a barrel to Brent. That spread is well inside the emergency-level discounts Russia absorbed in 2022 and 2023, but further verified declines in throughput would put pressure on the differential if Moscow's spot demand for Asian refined products continues to grow.5
The South Korean import route has structural limitations. Seoul has broadly sought to limit its exposure to sanctions-adjacent trade flows, and the multi-party intermediary chains and ship-to-ship transfers documented in the Japan-origin jet fuel shipment raise compliance exposure for every counterparty involved. Thirty thousand metric tons in a single month covers only a fraction of the shortfall implied by a throughput reading 30% below the seasonal average.5,3
Nikhil Dubey, a senior research analyst at Kpler, said some drones appeared to have targeted the hydrocracker units of refineries specifically. Hydrocrackers convert heavier crude fractions into jet fuel and diesel and are among the most technically complex refinery assets to repair, typically requiring months rather than weeks. If precision targeting of those conversion units has become systematic, the damage timeline runs well beyond what spot imports from Asia can compensate for.2