Russia will deploy the Pantsyr air defense system to protect oil and gas facilities

Russia has announced that it will defend its oil and gas facilities with the help of Pantsyr anti-aircraft missile systems. The plans to protect the facilities were announced by Artem Verkhov, Director of the Gas Industry Development Department of the Russian Ministry of Energy, UNN reports with reference to Reuters. 

"We are working together, in particular with our colleagues from the Russian National Guard, to cover the facilities, to install, respectively, protection systems such as Pantsyr," Verkhov said. 

Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, hitting a number of major refineries.  According to Reuters, in the first quarter, Russian refining capacity shut down by Ukrainian drone attacks amounted to about 4.6 million tons (370,500 barrels per day), or about 7% of the total.

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According to Bloomberg, starting on March 12, a wave of targeted strikes damaged three important oil refineries in Russia. UAV strikes in the Russian regions in two days affected 12% of the refining capacity of the Russian Federation.