Russian Baltic oil port on fire after major drone strike

Bloomberg News on Mar 25, 2026

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A drone attack set Russia’s Ust-Luga port on the Baltic Sea on fire as Ukraine carried out the most intense air strike on its foe in more than a year.

The blaze at the port was being contained, local governor Alexander Drozdenko said in a Telegram statement early Wednesday, without specifying which facility was affected. Ukraine’s General Staff said in its own Telegram statement that drones hit Novatek PJSC’s oil-product facilities, damaging storage tanks and loading equipment.

Novatek did not immediately respond to a Bloomberg request for a comment.

Ust-Luga is a key Russian oil-export outlet, shipping some 450,000 barrels of crude per day last month. Novatek’s facilities there process stable gas condensate into a range of oil products for export, such as naphtha, jet fuel and gasoil. The port also contains a crude terminal operated by Transneft PJSC and terminals for shipping coal, fertilizers and general cargoes.

Earlier this week, Ukraine also hit Primorsk, another important Baltic oil-export facility for Russia, causing at least a 36-hour hiatus in cargo loadings, according to shipping information seen by Bloomberg.

Russia intercepted a total of 389 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said. That’s the highest number since March 10, 2025, according to the state-run Tass news agency.

Kyiv’s General Staff said separately that Ukrainian forces also hit the Purga patrol icebreaker in the Vyborg shipyard in Russia’s Leningrad region overnight, which was being built for use by Russia’s border guard.

Officials in Kyiv have previously said their attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure aim to curtail the Kremlin’s oil revenue, which helps finance the invasion, and reduce fuel supplies to the front lines.

Any sustained disruptions in oil exports from Russia’s Baltic ports are set to contribute to concerns about a global shortage as the war in the Middle East, now in its fourth week, continues to roil markets.

The conflict has effectively closed oil flows via the Strait of Hormuz, a key export conduit for Gulf barrels, and sent the price of the Brent benchmark above $100 per barrel. Prices have dropped marginally as a diplomatic push by the U.S. to end the war with Iran appears to be gathering pace.

An overnight drone attack on Russia’s Belgorod region that borders Ukraine caused power outages, leaving around 450,000 people without electricity, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram statement. The repair work, which started immediately, is set to last for several days, he said.

Russia continues relentlessly striking Ukrainian infrastructure, with 147 drones detected last night, according to Ukraine’s General Staff. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s air force detected more than 550 launches from Russia, with hits all across the nation, including in Lviv and Ternopil as well as the Kharkiv and the Dnipro regions, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly TV address.

Since Monday, Moscow’s forces have fired more than 1,100 drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

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—With assistance from Olesia Safronova and Aliaksandr Kudrytski.