More than 30 Ukrainian drones targeted Russia’s biggest oil terminal of Primorsk overnight on September 11–12, The Moscow Times reported on September 12.

A pumping station caught fire as a result of the attack on the port on the Baltic Sea in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast. Alexander Drozdenko, governor of Leningrad Oblast, said that “debris from downed drones had fallen in several settlements.”

Primorsk is Russia’s main hub for the export of crude oil and diesel, serving as the terminus of the Baltic Pipeline System. The port has the capacity to handle up to 58mn tonnes of oil annually and can receive supertankers with a deadweight of as much as 150,000 tonnes.

The attack formed part of a broader wave of strikes across western Russia overnight. Authorities reported explosions in Smolensk and near Moscow, with dozens of drones launched towards key infrastructure.

This year the conflict has transitioned from a drone war to a missile war with both sides targeting economic and military high value deep in each other’s territory. Ukraine has been targeting Russian refineries in particular, in an effort to rob the Kremlin of its oil export income that it is using to fund the war. Since the start of August the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have hit some 50 refineries and oil pipelines, some of them multiple times.

The Russian government has not disclosed the scale of the damage to oil export operations. However, the strike on Primorsk marks one of the most direct attacks to date on energy facilities that underpin Russia’s global oil trade. The key port of Ust-Luga was also hit by Ukrainian drones last week and knocked out of action for at least a week.

Primorsk’s role in handling significant volumes of crude and refined products makes it a critical node in Russia’s export network to Europe and beyond. While the attacks have caused a fuel crisis in Russia, so far they do not seem to have reduced Russia’s oil export volumes.