Ukraine initiated a series of strikes on Russian oil facilities on Sunday, targeting a crucial loading port on the Baltic Sea and two tankers allegedly involved in the illegal transportation of Russian crude oil.
A nighttime drone attack caused a fire at Russia’s primary oil export port, Primorsk, situated on the Baltic Sea. The port, managed by Russia’s state oil company Transneft, has the capacity to process hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil daily. Despite being over 1,000 kilometers away from Ukraine, Primorsk has been repeatedly targeted since March, positioned between the Russian-Finnish border and St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
Governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed that the drone strike did not result in an oil spill, although no immediate details on casualties or damage were provided. In contrast, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asserted that Ukrainian forces successfully eliminated military targets and inflicted substantial harm on the oil port’s infrastructure.
Zelenskyy declared in a Telegram post that another Russian ship carrying Kalibr missiles had been disabled, with Major General Yevhen Khmara leading the destruction of targets at the Primorsk port. Ukrainian drones were also reported to have struck a Karakurt missile ship, a patrol boat, and a tanker linked to Russia’s illicit oil fleet, used to circumvent Western sanctions and price regulations on Russian energy.
In a separate announcement, Zelenskyy disclosed that Ukrainian forces had targeted two more tankers from the “shadow fleet” near the entrance of the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, preventing their further use for oil transportation. The operation was overseen by Andrii Hnatov, Ukraine’s chief of general staff.
Moscow has yet to acknowledge Zelenskyy’s claims about the strikes. Kyiv has escalated its assaults on Russia’s oil export infrastructure, citing that oil revenues directly fuel Moscow’s extensive invasion of Ukraine, which has persisted for five years.
Furthermore, in a separate development, Russian drones struck Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, resulting in two fatalities, three injuries, damage to residential buildings, and port infrastructure. Concurrently, nighttime strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region injured six individuals, while a Ukrainian drone attack near Moscow led to the death of a 77-year-old man. Russia reported downing 334 Ukrainian UAVs over Russia and Crimea, while Ukraine claimed to have shot down 249 drones and repelled ballistic missile attacks in 15 locations.
