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Ukrainian drones<\/a> struck key oil export infrastructure at least four times in Russia\u2019s Leningrad region on the Baltic Sea<\/a> in the past week, leaving some facilities burning for days. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s damage at Ust-Luga port,\u201d wrote Leningrad Region Governor Alexander Drozdenko in a March 31 post on Telegram, without providing further details on the extent of the damage.<\/p>\n Ukraine<\/a> regularly targets Russia<\/a> energy and electrical infrastructure with its drones and missiles. The Ukrainian army has in fact been leading a \u201csustained campaign [against Russian infrastructure objects] for almost a year\u201d, said Huseyn Aliyev, an expert on the war in Ukraine at Glasgow University.<\/p>\n But by targeting Russian oil ports, Kyiv seems to have touched a nerve. “This is the most serious threat to exports of Russian oil and oil products since the war began,” said energy analyst Boris Aronshtein, interviewed by RadioFreeEurope<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read more<\/span>Estonia and Latvia hit by drones as Ukraine unleashes massive attack on Russia<\/a><\/p>\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even said on March 30 that some of Ukraine\u2019s allies had sent Kyiv \u201csignals\u201d to scale back its long-range strikes on Russia\u2019s oil sector on the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n The energy infrastructure that Ukraine targeted is particularly sensitive. \u201cRussia\u2019s oil infrastructure is very heavily focused in the western part of Europe,\u201d said Jeff Hawn, a Russia specialist at the London School of Economics. \u201cThis was a legacy of the Soviet Union [. . .] and then later, Russia\u2019s primary market for its energy supplies was Western Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n The Primorsk and Ust-Louga ports thus became Russia\u2019s main oil terminals on the Baltic Sea. It was also these terminals that the Ukrainian army targeted in recent weeks.<\/p>\n These two oil terminals \u201caccount for about 30% of Russian oil exports\u201d, said Agata Loskot-Strachota, a European energy specialist at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw.<\/p>\n The two ports are important for a \u201cstate that has pretty much become reliant on the oil industry to continue to fund the war effort\u201d, said Hawn. Kyiv likely had the ports in its crosshairs for a long time, but it wasn\u2019t until six months ago that \u201cthe capacity and range of Ukrainian drones significantly increased\u201d, said Aliyev. \u00a0<\/p>\n The recent drone strikes are \u201cthe natural evolution of the Ukrainian strategy, which began by targeting infrastructure near the border and in the Black Sea<\/a> region because they are the easiest targets to attain\u201d, said Aliyev.<\/p>\n The Ukrainian army has begun striking deeper into Russian territory simply because their drones now have the capacity to do so. It\u2019s even more natural that the Ukrainian army seriously damaged the infrastructure \u201ccloser to Ukrainian borders and within comfortable range of Ukrainian drones\u201d, said Aliyev.<\/p>\n The strikes also mark a \u201cstrategic change in [Ukraine\u2019s] choice of targets\u201d, said Will Kingston-Cox, a Russia specialist at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona. Ukraine\u2019s previous refinery strikes were \u201cused to squeeze processing capabilities and to create bottlenecks in [domestic] fuel production, whereas import and export terminal strikes are going after the routes [through which] Russia monetizes its hydrocarbons internationally\u201d, added Kingston-Cox.<\/p>\n In this context, the timing of the strikes counts. \u201cThe demand for Russian oil has strongly increased because of the war in the Middle East<\/a> and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>,\u201d said Aliyev.<\/p>\n Oil shortage, not removal of sanctions, will boost Russia’s energy exports, expert says<\/p>\nUkrainian drones capable of performing long-range strikes<\/strong><\/h2>\n