Ukraine–Russia: as momentum changes hands on the front, the war shifts to energy infrastructure

The picture on the front

According to the 2 September assessment of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Ukraine recaptured at least 129.81 square kilometres in August 2026, while Russia advanced 90.35 square kilometres; including infiltration zones, the Russian gain is 123.53 square kilometres. A year earlier, in August 2025, Russia had seized 505.55 square kilometres. According to a Kyiv Post report of 15 September, the Ukrainian army openly confirmed the counter-offensive north-west of Lyman for the first time.

These data show that Russia is losing momentum on the ground. Territorial change alone, however, does not determine the direction of the war. With the front line largely static, the real competition between the sides is shifting towards weakening the other side's capacity to sustain the war through economic and physical infrastructure. Some front-line details in early compilations, such as power cuts in five regions from 174 drones in a single night, could not be verified in accessible sources.

The energy infrastructure front

According to Euromaidan Press and The Moscow Times, on 1 September Ukraine struck the NOVATEK gas condensate processing complex at the port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region, and a large fire broke out at the facility. The regional governor said 52 drones had been shot down in four hours; this was the sixth attack on Ust-Luga in 2026. According to CREA's August report, loadings at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea stopped for nine consecutive days and fell by 58 per cent over the month.

According to CREA, Russia's fossil fuel export revenue was 604 million euros a day in August, down from 683 million euros in July. Urals crude averaged 69.9 dollars in August, at a 24 per cent discount to Brent. Russia, for its part, continues mass attacks on Ukraine's power grid in response; according to ISW, 200 drones were launched on the night of 15 September.

The gap between narrative and data

The prevailing narrative is that sanctions have cut Russia's oil revenue and that Russia is advancing on the front. The data paint a more complex picture. The Urals price, which had fallen as low as 34.52 dollars a barrel at Novorossiysk in December 2025, climbed above 90 dollars in early March 2026; the Hormuz crisis increased demand for Russian oil. On 13 March the US granted a waiver allowing Russian oil waiting at sea to be purchased for 30 days; volume estimates range between 80 and 100 million barrels.

In other words, the sanctions regime was loosened by its own enforcers during a period of energy scarcity; in recent months the main factor limiting Russian revenue has been Ukraine's port and refinery strikes rather than sanctions. On the front, meanwhile, Russia has lost momentum rather than advanced. This means escalation has not decreased but has moved elsewhere.

The link to the Hormuz crisis

The Ukrainian front and the crisis in the Gulf meet in the same oil market. With OPEC+ effective spare capacity down to 0.22 million barrels a day according to the IEA, every loss in Russian refined product exports feeds directly into the global market through diesel prices. According to the IEA's September report, diesel prices rose above 200 dollars a barrel in early September, up 94 per cent on pre-war levels.

This link creates a dilemma for Western decision-makers. Limiting Russian energy revenue is a politically desirable goal, but with Hormuz closed, removing Russian supply from the market pushes prices even higher. The temporary waiver in March is a concrete example of this dilemma. Ukraine's port strikes, meanwhile, are changing this balance on the ground regardless of Western preferences.

What to watch

Three indicators are critical ahead of winter: whether loading data at Russian export ports recover, the duration of outages caused by attacks on Ukraine's grid, and the fate of the proposal for a pause in mutual strikes on energy infrastructure. The OPEC+ meeting on 4 October will show how Russia's production decisions feed through to the market.