Ukrainian drones have carried out terrorist strikes extending into Russia designed to cripple its oil and gas industry and been deployed to attack Russian journalists
On one of its last days in office, the Biden administration declassified an account of its once-secret support for Ukraine’s drone industry.
U.S. officials said they had made big investments—sending $1.5 billion last September alone—that helped Ukraine start and expand its production of drones as it battled Russia’s larger and better-equipped army.
The U.S. effort included money to support drone makers and to purchase parts. The U.S. also sent intelligence officials to Ukraine to help build the drone program.
In an interview in mid-January, CIA Director William Burns referred indirectly to his agency’s support for the drone program in Ukraine, stating that “I think our intelligence support has helped the Ukrainians to defend themselves. Not just in the sharing of intelligence, but support for some of the systems that have been so effective.”
The systems to which Burns was referring include “Sea Baby” drones, operated by the SBU (Ukrainian intelligence service), that can deliver nearly a ton of explosives more than 1,000 kilometers, and targeted Russian ships and port installations in the Black Sea region in concert with missiles reportedly destroying one-third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Additionally, Ukraine has become very advanced in new fiber-optic drones that can be converted into unjammable flying bombs, evade electronic shields and deliver precision strikes.[1]
The Kyiv Post discussed the extensive use of surveillance drones to monitor and track targets, including those being fingered for assassination by elite CIA-trained SBU commando units that are carrying out a Phoenix-style program to kidnap and kill Ukrainian dissidents.
Some of the targets are killed by U.S. RQ-4 Global Hawk drones made by Northrop Grumman, which combine surveillance capabilities to then deliver precision strikes using guided missiles or aerial bombs against personnel or physical targets.
Business Insider reported that the drone industry was one component of Ukraine’s booming defense industry, with the country now also producing homemade artillery, missiles and other weapons to meet-front line demands.
This while civilian manufacturing has floundered under Volodymyr Zelensky’s rule and a lot of Ukraine’s economy has been bought over by foreign interests, including Wall Street banks that have engaged in a large-scale corporate land grab.
Environmental Terrorism
After the Biden administration’s disclosure about its support for Ukraine’s drone industry, the Associated Press reported on a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian oil refinery in the Volgograd region that processed 6% of Russia’s oil. Falling drone debris during the attack resulted in the outbreak of local fires that caused injuries to local residents.
The same attack targeted a major natural gas processing plant in Russia’s Astrakhan region.
ZeroHedge reported that the attacks on the Volgograd refinery, owned by Lukoil, was the third oil refinery hit by Ukrainian drones within a little over a week.
In the city of Chornomorsk in southern Odessa, drone attacks partially disrupted electricity supplies and damaged a hospital, administrative building, grain warehouse, a house and several trucks, according to a report in Al Jazeera. Another Ukrainian drone strike in the Belgorod border region killed three civilians walking on the street, according to the region’s governor.
ZeroHedge noted that “the constant mass drone attacks have done nothing to alter Russia’s advances in Ukraine’s east, but Kyiv hopes to put a dent in Russia’s war machine by setting back its crucial oil and energy-based revenue.”
These latter comments point to the dubious military utility of the Ukrainian drone program and its contribution to military operations designed to cripple Russia’s economy that will cause hardship for the local population—not to mention significant environmental damage.
On February 17, another drone strike damaged the Caspian Piping Consortium’s pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar region.
The facility ironically was partially owned by Chevron, Exxon-Mobil and Shell and operated a pipeline that transferred oil from Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field to among other places, Israel, threatening the energy security of the U.S.’s Middle East proxy.[2]
Targeting Russian Journalists
Eva Bartlett reported on another horrific way in which Ukraine’s drone industry has been deployed: attacking Russian journalists.
On June 16, 2024, a Ukrainian drone strike killed journalist Nikita Tsitsagi, 29, as he prepared to do a report from the St. Nicholas Monastery near Ugledar—a monastery, heavily-targeted by Ukrainian shelling over the years.
Just three days earlier, Bartlett reported that Ukrainian forces targeted Russian NTV journalists filming in the extremely hard hit village of Golmovsky, east of the northern Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) city of Gorlovka.
The Ukrainian drone strike killed cameraman Valery Kozhin and seriously injured Alexey Ivliyev, a war correspondent.
Bartlett noted that the targeting of journalists by Ukrainian killer drones is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
At least 30 Russian journalists have been targeted and killed, though no international investigation has been ordered.
War Stars Illusions
In his 1988 book War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination, Rutgers University professor H. Bruce Franklin traced a deep-rooted cultural belief in the magic of futuristic weapon systems that would enable the U.S. to defeat any foreign adversary.
Franklin dated the infatuation to the era of the revolutionary war with the development of the combat submarine by Robert H. Fulton, which was used to pulverize the British Navy in the war of 1812.
Franklin in turn showed a direct line through World War I and World War II and the development of air power and the atomic bomb, through the Vietnam War where sophisticated U.S. war machines could not defeat the guerrilla warfare tactics of the Vietcong.
The Ukraine conflict shows how the U.S. continues to cling to its war star fantasies and is transferring them to allied countries—to their detriment.
Since the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) began, Ukraine has functioned as a testing ground for new American weapon systems that include space-based satellites and sensors used by the Ukrainians to track Russian troop movements and assist in navigation, mapping and electronic warfare, and positioning systems that guide precision weapons and drones.
Ukraine, however, is losing the war to a far more powerful neighbor that it should never have tried to take on.
German war theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that war is politics by other means.
The U.S.-Ukrainian side never had the support of the eastern Ukrainian people, provoked the conflict, and cannot effectively intimidate a Russian population that has a long history of mobilizing against foreign aggressors.
So it is poised to lose no matter how many billions of dollars are invested in drones or other fancy technological gadgetry.
The fiber-optic cables maintain a reliable link between the drone and the operator, making them quite dangerous because they’re resistant to traditional electronic warfare practices. They’re difficult to defend against and provide high-quality video transmissions of surveillance footage. ↑
Another drone attack, emanating from a drone swarm, caused a fire at the Ilskey oil refinery near the village of Severskaya. The debris damaged twelve residential homes. The refinery is one of the key refineries in southern Russia. On February 26, a Ukrainian drone attack struck a major cargo port in the Black Sea, which housed a large oil terminal. Ukraine has also directly struck buildings in Moscow with drones. ↑
CovertAction Magazine is made possible by subscriptions, orders and donations from readers like you.
Blow the Whistle on U.S. Imperialism
Click the whistle and donate
When you donate to CovertAction Magazine, you are supporting investigative journalism. Your contributions go directly to supporting the development, production, editing, and dissemination of the Magazine.
CovertAction Magazine does not receive corporate or government sponsorship. Yet, we hold a steadfast commitment to providing compensation for writers, editorial and technical support. Your support helps facilitate this compensation as well as increase the caliber of this work.
Please make a donation by clicking on the donate logo above and enter the amount and your credit or debit card information.
CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and your gift is tax-deductible for federal income purposes. CAI’s tax-exempt ID number is 87-2461683.
We sincerely thank you for your support.
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s). CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI), including its Board of Directors (BD), Editorial Board (EB), Advisory Board (AB), staff, volunteers and its projects (including CovertAction Magazine) are not responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. This article also does not necessarily represent the views the BD, the EB, the AB, staff, volunteers, or any members of its projects.
Differing viewpoints: CAM publishes articles with differing viewpoints in an effort to nurture vibrant debate and thoughtful critical analysis. Feel free to comment on the articles in the comment section and/or send your letters to the Editors, which we will publish in the Letters column.
Copyrighted Material: This web site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. As a not-for-profit charitable organization incorporated in the State of New York, we are making such material available in an effort to advance the understanding of humanity’s problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. You can read more about ‘fair use’ and US Copyright Law at the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Republishing: CovertAction Magazine (CAM) grants permission to cross-post CAM articles on not-for-profit community internet sites as long as the source is acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original CovertAction Magazine article. Also, kindly let us know at info@CovertActionMagazine.com. For publication of CAM articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: info@CovertActionMagazine.com.
By using this site, you agree to these terms above.
About the Author
Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University and has taught at numerous colleges across the United States. He is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs and co-hosts a radio show on New York Public Radio and on Progressive Radio News Network called “Left on Left.” He is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and is the author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019), The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018), and Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden (Clarity Press, 2023). Besides these books, Kuzmarov has published hundreds of articles and contributed to numerous edited volumes, including one in the prestigious Oxford History of Counterinsurgency . He can be reached at jkuzmarov2@gmail.com and found on substack here.
