In an apparent acknowledgement of increasing disturbance to oil and gas installations from Ukraine-guided unmanned aerial vehicles, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed changes to country’s legislation aiming to compel oil and gas producers to invest in the acquisition and management of arsenals of anti-drone weapons.

Approved amendments to existing laws on the provision of privately owned security and investigative services, and the security of oil and gas infrastructure, will permit anti-drone weapons to be sold and used by privately held agencies that producers contract to guard and protect their oilfields and oil and gas processing facilities.

Until now, only the police, armed forces and wholly owned security units of state controlled gas giant Gazprom, oil pipeline operator Transneft and the nation’s largest oil producer have been permitted to keep and use arms to fire at suicide drones that have repeatedly attacked oil and gas-related facilities in the south and southwest of Russia.

However, according to a governmental explanation note to parliamentarians, an estimated 80% of Russian energy installations are guarded by privately owned security agencies that have no legal permission to keep and use anti-drone weapons — often based on modified high-speed machine guns and cannons and radio interceptors and signal jammers.

Although only several successful drone attacks against Russian oil refineries and oil pipeline infrastructure have been reported in the country’s media, the note said that authorities counted 45 drone assaults against energy facilities during the first half of this year.

Drones that are widely believed to have flown in from Ukraine have targeted mostly oil refineries in the south of Russia — said to be major suppliers of fuels to the Russian military — oil pipeline pumping stations operated by Transneft in central and southwestern parts of the country, and oil and fuel storage depots.

However, one attack by water-based drones earlier this year halted loadings of Russian and Kazakh oil from the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and a nearby marine oil export terminal operated by Caspian Pipeline Consortium for several hours.

Changes to the law will establish the legal framework for private security agencies serving Russian oil producers to operate and engage firearms against aerial, surface and underwater drones that may be used by Ukraine — which Russia invaded in February 2022.

Speaking earlier this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed a plan of the country’s industry to produce an estimated 1 million military drones of various kinds during 2024.

Also, Ukraine’s state-run military conglomerate Ukroboronprom is gearing up to start the mass production of heavy suicide aerial drones that are similar to the units, known as Shaheds, its executive director German Smetanin told a Kyiv-based newspaper in November.

The Shaheds that Russia buys from Iran and is also preparing to manufacture in the oil-rich region of Tatarstan, have been the most often used means of Russian aerial attacks against Ukraine’s energy facilities, and towns and cities in the country, since the northern hemisphere autumn of 2022.