Ukrainian drones hit the port of Primorsk on the Baltic Sea early Monday, setting fuel tanks ablaze at Russia’s most important crude export hub in the region and forcing an evacuation of port personnel, Russian authorities said.
Leningrad region Governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed the attack in a Telegram post, saying firefighters were battling the blaze while air defenses shot down more than 60 drones over the region. Russia’s Defense Ministry put the nationwide toll at 249 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones intercepted overnight across Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Leningrad, Moscow, and other regions. Ukraine has not commented on the strike.
Situated on the Karelian Isthmus, 137 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, Primorsk serves as the terminal point of Russia’s Baltic Pipeline System and handles up to 75 million tons of oil per year — roughly 1 million barrels of crude and 300,000 barrels of diesel daily — through state operator Transneft.
NASA satellite data confirmed large fires at a light petroleum products terminal within the port, meaning the damage extends beyond crude infrastructure to gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel stocks that feed both export revenues and Russian military logistics.
The port also anchors Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, the network of largely unregistered tankers Moscow uses to ship Urals crude around Western sanctions. Ukrainian monitoring channels estimated daily budget losses from a loading suspension at up to $41 million.
The strike marks the second major attack on Primorsk in under a year. A September 2025 drone attack — the first ever targeting the port — damaged two tankers, halted oil loading for several days, and drove crude prices up nearly 2%. Monday’s attack arrives with markets already under pressure: US benchmark crude briefly touched $100 per barrel Monday morning amid the ongoing Middle East conflict.
Primorsk is one front in a widening Ukrainian campaign against Russian energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s military struck Rosneft‘s Saratov oil refinery on Saturday, and a March 16 attack on a fuel depot in Labinsk, Krasnodar Krai destroyed 18 of 20 storage tanks at the facility. Drones also struck an oil terminal near the port of Taman in Krasnodar on Monday.
Cumulatively, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refining capacity have cut output by an estimated 300,000 barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency.Moscow finds itself collecting higher oil revenues on paper while watching the physical infrastructure needed to move those barrels go up in smoke. Washington has eased sanctions on Russian and Iranian crude in an effort to cool prices — a move that could partially offset Moscow’s losses, but does nothing to restore damaged export capacity.
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