Raivo Vare explained, appearing on "Ukraina stuudio," that Ukraine's initial wave of drone attacks against Russian oil facilities briefly raised fuel prices in Russia, but did not significantly reach the retail network due to election-related price control efforts.

In the current, second wave of these attacks, Vare noted there are visible problems, but it's important to distinguish in which sectors these issues arise.

"There are supply issues with gasoline and diesel in the civilian sector. For the military, they manage to scrape it together still. Yes, it does disrupt logistics somewhat, especially when those supply bases near the front are bombed, which aren't directly factories, but in general, it doesn't affect warfare as much as one would hope. And it mainly impacts the availability of quantities for the domestic market. The summer season is approaching, increasing gasoline demand, and the agricultural season is coming. There's a very high need for diesel, and there isn't enough," Vare explained.

He added that while Russia has previously limited domestic consumption of oil products, there is now a complete ban until autumn, and fuel is still in short supply.

"This is the result of those factory attacks. And then they are buying from Belarus, from whom they usually have not bought, but to whom they have only supplied crude oil," Vare noted.

Vare said that Ukrainian drones are not just randomly attacking things on Russian oil factory grounds but are specifically targeting selected objects.

"Video material shows that Ukrainian drones are not hunting random objects at the factory grounds – factories are large, territories are large – it's not even fuel tanks, but primarily the rectification towers designed for separating incoming crude oil flow. And this is quite painful because each factory has two to four of these towers, some have more, but most have two to four, and if any of them go out of service, then nothing comes through that pipe: no heavy oil, no kerosene, no gasoline or diesel either. As a result, there's a big problem, so production decreases," he said.

"Additionally, Ukrainians have come up with a clever thing that maybe wasn't noticeable before – they have started bombing pipeline buffer stations. These are oil bases used as buffer stations for crude oil pipelines, which is necessary for technical reasons. They have started bombing them," Vare explained.

"The only category of these oil objects that they have not yet touched, where it is known that it was also a very strong wish of American partners due to the real potential to impact global oil market prices, are the export terminals, primarily on the Black Sea. There has indeed been restraint there so far. But restraint was also somewhat because there was an aid package being passed in America, and to not jeopardize that, they pulled back a bit. Now they have freer hands again," said Vare.

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