Kathrine Frich
The damage is piling up.
In war, size usually looks like a clear advantage on paper.
Across a massive country, distance and sheer scale have historically helped keep vital assets out of harm’s way.
Now, that exact advantage is turning into a costly liability.
Built for another era
Russian air defenses simply cannot cover all of the country’s massive industrial sites against incoming Ukrainian drones. That sobering assessment comes straight from Alexander Shokhin, who heads the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, known as the RSPP.
Speaking to the Russian state news agency TASS on October 17, Shokhin pointed out that the sheer size of these production complexes makes full protection nearly impossible. According to Ukrainian outlet United24 Media, the root of the problem goes all the way back to the Cold War.
During the Soviet era, planners designed major factories with the constant threat of a nuclear strike in mind. To stop a single bomb from wiping out an entire plant, they spread individual workshops across huge plots of land.
A modern weak spot
That Cold War blueprint is backfiring today. Chemical plants and metalworks often stretch across several kilometers, leaving them wide open to long-range drone attacks deep inside Russia.
As TASS reported, Shokhin explained that spacing out the workshops required a massive web of connecting infrastructure between the buildings. Even if air defense crews manage to shield a few individual structures, the wider site and its vital links remain exposed.
And Ukraine is taking full advantage. For months, Kyiv’s forces have sent long-range drones to hit oil refineries, airfields, chemical factories, and defense plants across the border.
Fires in the north
The damage is already piling up. Back in September, U24 Media noted that fires and strike damage forced five Russian oil facilities, including the Moscow Oil Refinery, to halt processing.
By Sunday, October 18, the campaign had reached the country’s northwest again. According to United24 Media, Ukrainian drones sparked a blaze at the Petersburg Oil Terminal while separate strikes hit power infrastructure and a VKontakte data center in the nearby Leningrad region.
