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Ukraine has continued targeting Russian oil infrastructure despite appeals from Western allies to limit such attacks amid rising global energy prices.
Russian officials reported that Ukrainian drones struck a Lukoil refinery and a pipeline near St. Petersburg on Sunday. Air defence units in the Nizhny Novgorod region intercepted 30 drones, according to local authorities.
“As a result of the falling debris, two facilities [of the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery] were damaged,” governor Gleb Nikitin said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that some allies had urged restraint on long-range strikes targeting Russia’s oil sector. He indicated Ukraine might reduce attacks, but only if Russia halted assaults on Ukraine’s power grid.
The Institute for the Study of War noted a surge in Ukrainian strikes on strategic Russian oil facilities, including three attacks on the Primorsk port in the Leningrad region within two weeks.
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The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, Russia’s largest oil-exporting hub, also suffered drone attacks, injuring at least eight people, including two children, and damaging residential buildings.
Novorossiysk hosts the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal, which exports Kazakh oil and involves US companies such as Chevron and ExxonMobil. Air raid alerts typically force terminals to suspend operations.
Earlier today, Russia’s military claimed it had shot down 148 Ukrainian drones over three hours, while emergency crews worked to restore power to nearly 500,000 households affected by airstrikes. Ukraine has not commented on the latest attacks.
Ukraine is under growing pressure from its own allies to scale back one of its most effective wartime strategies: long-range drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure.
According to Kyrylo Budanov, Kyiv has received “signals” from partners urging restraint, as the widening conflict involving Iran begins to ripple across global energy markets.
The backdrop to these requests is the escalating conflict in the Middle East, where fighting involving the United States and Israel has now entered its sixth week.
At the centre of the crisis is the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes.
Iran’s closure of the strait has sent oil prices sharply higher, intensifying fears of a global supply shock.
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