Zelensky’s oil campaign shows leverage

Volodymyr Zelensky’s 40-day campaign against Russia was framed from the start as a pressure operation, not a battlefield breakthrough. On June 25, the Ukrainian president said he had approved a plan for Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, to conduct a 40-day “influence operation” against Russia aimed at compelling it to end the war. When the deadline expired on August 4, there was no ceasefire and no sign that Vladimir Putin was ready to negotiate. But Ukrainian and outside reporting over the past week has described a narrower result: repeated strikes and sanctions pressure pushed attention toward the vulnerability of Russia’s oil sector rather than the front line. ### Why did Kyiv call this a 40-day campaign in the first place? June 25 was the date Zelensky publicly announced the plan after a meeting with acting SBU chief Yevhenii Khmara. In his statement, Zelensky said Khmara had reported on “our plan for long-range sanctions, medium-range sanctions,” and on results already achieved by the SBU. Zelensky said he approved a 40-day operation “against the aggressor state aimed at compelling it to end the war.” (kyivindependent.com) July 25 showed the same message still running through Zelensky’s public remarks. In an address published by the presidential office, he said Ukraine’s “long-range operations” and “mid-range strikes” were helping create pressure on Russia and added that partners also needed to increase pressure so that “the idea of peace” would prevail over further Russian mobilization. (kyivindependent.com) ### If there was no ceasefire, what did the campaign actually change? August 5 reporting by Kyiv Post said the campaign did not bring Russia “anywhere near to a ceasefire,” but argued it achieved “one major goal” by undermining Russia’s assumption that refineries, budget revenues and occupied Crimea were safely beyond the reach of Ukrainian pressure. The article said the leverage point now sits “inside Russia’s oil sector.” (president.gov.ua) July 13 reporting by Kyiv Post listed some of the campaign’s targets as oil infrastructure, military sites and vessels linked to Russia’s sanctioned “shadow fleet.” Among the sites it named was the Cherkasy oil pumping station in Bashkortostan, which the SBU said is part of the Transneft-Ural pipeline system and transports nearly 2 million metric tons of petroleum products annually. The same report said a Sea Baby naval drone struck the Blue tanker near occupied Yalta and described the vessel as part of the shadow fleet used to move oil outside Western sanctions. (kyivpost.com) July 6 added another example. The Moscow Times reported that Ukraine said its drones struck the Gazprom Neft refinery in Omsk, which the paper described as Russia’s largest oil refinery in western Siberia and one of the deepest attacks on Russian territory since the full-scale invasion. (kyivpost.com) ### Where do sanctions fit into a campaign built around strikes? July 29 put sanctions back into the public message from Kyiv. Zelensky’s office said he met more than 60 U.S. senators in Washington and attended a procedural vote on a sanctions bill, while separately welcoming U.S. sanctions against Russian oil companies. The presidential office has also continued to publish sanctions-related updates tied to Russian oil shipping and companies supporting Russia’s military-industrial base. (themoscowtimes.com) The phrase Zelensky used on June 25 — “long-range sanctions” — appears to fuse military pressure with economic coercion. That is an inference from his wording and from subsequent Ukrainian reporting, which paired drone attacks on refineries, pumping stations and tankers with public lobbying for tougher external sanctions on Russian energy. (president.gov.ua) ### Why did outside timing matter as much as the strikes? August 5 commentary in The Moscow Times said the latest pressure on Moscow coincided with external deadlines and diplomatic warnings, including Donald Trump’s deadline for Russia to end the war or face new sanctions. The article’s main focus was Kazakhstan, but it placed the Kremlin under simultaneous military and diplomatic pressure over Ukraine. (kyivindependent.com) July 7 also showed Kyiv working directly on sanctions implementation. The presidential office said sanctions policy adviser Vladyslav Vlasiuk met EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan to discuss “next steps to increase pressure” on Russia. ### What is the practical lesson from this episode? August 4 was the deadline, and it passed without the outcome Zelensky had publicly set out. (themoscowtimes.com) But the record of the campaign, as described by Ukrainian officials and recent reporting, shows a different mechanism at work: make the war costlier to finance, transport and insure by targeting oil infrastructure and the shadow fleet while pressing partners for broader sanctions. (president.gov.ua) Kyiv’s next moves are likely to be visible in the same places they have been in recent weeks — presidential statements, SBU strike claims and allied sanctions announcements tied to Russian oil. (kyivpost.com)