Ukrainian drones spark fire at Russia’s largest Baltic oil port

Ukraine launched a mass drone attack overnight on Aug. 14 against Russia's largest Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, sparking a fire at the critical oil export hub and extending Kyiv's campaign to choke off Moscow's energy revenues more than four and a half years into the full-scale war.

Fire at Key Export Terminal

Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed on Telegram that a fire broke out at the port after drones struck the facility, with emergency crews dispatched to extinguish the blaze. He said 51 drones were shot down over the region during the attack, which lasted roughly four hours and ended around 6:48 a.m. Moscow time. Bloomberg reported a total of 54 drones were downed over the Leningrad region.bloomberg+2

Ust-Luga, located about 110 kilometers from St. Petersburg near the Estonian border, serves as the terminus of the Baltic Pipeline System-2 and handles exports of crude oil, fuel oil, jet fuel, and gasoil. Russia exported roughly 700,000 barrels of oil per day through the port in 2025, according to Reuters data cited by Kyiv Post, making it second only to Primorsk among Russia's Baltic oil-export facilities. Together, the two ports account for approximately 40% of Russia's seaborne oil exports.kyivpost+1

Sustained Pressure on Russian Energy

The strike marks at least the sixth attack on Ust-Luga this year. In late March and early April, Ukrainian forces carried out near-continuous assaults on the port, hitting oil tankers, storage facilities, and loading berths. The Kyiv School of Economics estimated that five strikes on Ust-Luga and Primorsk cost Russian energy exporters roughly $970 million in lost revenue in a single week ending March 29, according to the Financial Times.kyivpost

The latest attack came just two days after Ukraine struck the Sheskharis oil terminal in Novorossiysk, Russia's largest oil terminal on the Black Sea. Earlier this week, a Ukrainian drone strike forced the complete shutdown of an oil refinery in the city of Orsk in Russia's Orenburg Oblast, some 1,300 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Governor Yevgeny Solntsev said the damage to imported equipment could take up to six months to repair under sanctions conditions.eaworldview+2

On Aug. 13, Ukraine also struck and set ablaze the Salavat refinery in Bashkortostan, the largest petrochemical facility operated by Russian energy giant Gazprom, with a processing capacity of 7.5 million tons of oil per year.eaworldview

Regional Spillover

The broader drone campaign is producing ripple effects beyond Russia's borders. Reuters reported that on Friday, Latvia's air force shot down a drone that entered its airspace, while Finland temporarily restricted parts of the Baltic Sea as a precaution. More than 50 Russian and Russian-occupied regions have introduced gasoline rationing since the spring as refinery shutdowns compound a domestic fuel supply crisis.maritimeprofessional+2