In late March, over a period of 10 days, Ukrainian forces attacked Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga with drones, with the fifth and most recent strike hitting an oil loading terminal, sources told Reuters.
This drone campaign — the heaviest in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia — was part of Kyiv’s ongoing efforts to disrupt Russia’s crude oil export infrastructure.
According to Reuters’ calculations based on market data, approximately 40 percent of Russia’s oil export capacity has been halted this month due to drone strikes, infrastructure damage to the Druzhba pipeline, and the seizure of tankers.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on March 30 that several allied nations had warned of potential “scaling back” of long-range strikes on Russia’s oil infrastructure, as the Iran war has heavily affected global energy prices.
Alexander Drozdenko, regional governor of Leningrad Oblast, reported on Tuesday that three injured people, including two children, had recovered. However, the town lost several buildings in the aftermath.
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In a message on Telegram, Drozdenko said air-raid alerts across the region had been lifted, though the extent of the damage to the port had not been detailed. He later claimed that Russia had dealt with the attack, with “the supply of hot water and heating to residential and other units” restored.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, assured that Russia would continue to defend its infrastructure, calling Ukraine’s moves “terrorist attacks.”
“This doesn’t mean these facilities can be 100 percent protected from such terrorist attacks. However, intensive work is being carried out, and this applies not only to the port… but to all other critical infrastructure facilities,” he told reporters.
Industry sources told Reuters that several oil loading facilities operated by Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft were hit during the latest attack. The company has not replied for comment.
Situated in the southeastern Gulf of Finland, Ust-Luga serves as a major logistical center for Russia, integrating large-scale oil processing plants with terminals for global crude and fuel distribution. Source-based data suggests that the port shipped 32.9 million metric tons of oil products in 2025, with around 700,000 barrels of crude oil exported daily.
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Ten days of drones
Russia’s Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga have endured more than a week of drone attacks, forcing suspensions of oil exports. Large fires broke out, sending smoke visible as far as Finland.
On March 25, an anonymous source told Reuters that Ust-Luga had been shut down, with its reservoirs burning, though no casualties were reported.
Jukka-Pekka Lumilahti, director of the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard District, told Reuters that the fire in Primorsk lasted the entire day.
“It is still burning there pretty much just as it was at the start,” he said that day. “These are indeed massive fires, and there is a massive amount of smoke.”
The drone strike was a joint operation carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), military intelligence (HUR), and the Special Forces, alongside the Border Guard and foreign intelligence services, the state-run Kyiv Independent reported.
Though it is unclear where the drones were launched from, analysts suggest they were deployed from nearly 900 kilometers away, beyond Ukraine’s northern border.
Estonia and Latvia reported last week that Ukrainian drones had crashed on their territory, while Finland’s air force said its fighter jets identified suspected drones near the town of Kouvola.
As reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Zelenskyy was on a trip to the Middle East when he said on March 28 that around 60 percent of Ust-Luga’s export capacity had been disrupted.
However, he was warned by unnamed “partners” that the strikes were also hindering global oil supplies. He added that Ukraine would cease attacking Russia’s oil facilities if Moscow did the same to Kyiv’s already damaged energy infrastructure.
