A satellite near-infrared image shows smoke rising from oil storage tanks at Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, which was struck multiple times in Ukrainian attacks, in Ust-Luga, Russia March 29, 2026. Vantor\/Handout via REUTERS<\/p>\n
Ukraine Strikes Two Russian Refineries, Baltic Sea\u00a0Port<\/p>\n
April 18 (Reuters)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Ukrainian drones struck a handful of Russia\u2019s oil facilities overnight, including two oil refineries in the Samara region and a Baltic Sea\u00a0port\u00a0that exports petroleum products, Russian local governors and a Ukrainian army official said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Kyiv\u2019s troops have in recent weeks stepped up<\/p>\n
attacks on Russian oil depots and refineries<\/p>\n
\u2013 key sources of revenue for\u00a0Moscow\u2019s war\u00a0budget \u2013 sometimes targeting sites thousands of kilometers from Ukraine\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n
In the Leningrad region, which surrounds St Petersburg and borders Finland, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said a fire had been extinguished at the Vysotsk\u00a0port, which houses a terminal operated by Lukoil\u00a0LKOH.MM\u00a0handling exports of fuel oil, naphtha, diesel and vacuum gas oil.<\/p>\n
In a statement on the Telegram messaging app acknowledging the\u00a0port\u00a0attack, Ukraine\u2019s drone forces commander, Robert Brovdi, said Ukrainian forces also attacked oil refineries in the cities of Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in the Samara region. Both sites have been repeatedly struck in the course of<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake Russian Oil Great Again,\u201d he wrote sarcastically.<\/p>\n
Brovdi also criticized the\u00a0U.S. decision\u00a0to renew a waiver allowing countries to<\/p>\n
buy sanctioned Russian oil<\/p>\n
Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, the Samara region governor, said industrial targets came under strike. He did not name the facilities.<\/p>\n
According to Brovdi, a series of recent strikes on Russia\u2019s oil logistics at Primorsk, Ust-Luga, Sheskharis, Tuapse reduced total daily oil shipments by about 880,000 barrels. Reuters could not immediately verify the figure.<\/p>\n
An oil depot in Russian-occupied Sevastopol in Crimea also came under attack on Saturday, Brovdi said.<\/p>\n
Separately, authorities in the southern Krasnodar region said on Saturday that a fire at an oil depot in Tikhoretsk, and another at an oil terminal at the Black Sea\u00a0port\u00a0of Tuapse, which had burned since Thursday, have been extinguished.<\/p>\n
Both fires, authorities have said, were caused by Ukrainian drone strikes.<\/p>\n