The recent Ukrainian drone strikes have forced Russia’s Ust-Luga oil export terminal on the Baltic Sea coast to cut operations by half for September, Reuters reports. The disruption follows earlier drone attacks on pipeline infrastructure, and has triggered emergency rerouting of crude exports to other ports.

Damage affects flows to key terminal

Two industry sources told Reuters that Ust-Luga will operate at about 350,000 barrels per day—roughly half its normal capacity. The slowdown comes after Ukrainian drone strikes earlier in August targeted the Unecha pumping station in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast. Unecha is a crucial node in the pipeline system that feeds Ust-Luga and is also linked to the Druzhba pipeline.

The drone attacks have affected crude flows not only to Ust-Luga but also through the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies Belarus, Slovakia, and Hungary. Slovakia said on 28 August that initial supplies via the Druzhba line had resumed in test mode.

Crude redirected as repair work begins

The Reuters sources did not clarify which pipeline was damaged but said that repair work was underway. However, there is no clear timeline for when full capacity at Ust-Luga will be restored. To limit export losses, oil volumes are being redirected to Russia’s Primorsk and Novorossiisk ports.

A Ukrainian drone strike hit Russia’s Druzhba oil pumping station in Unecha late on 21 August, setting off a major fire. Commander of the Ukrainian Forces of Unmanned Systems (SBS), Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, confirmed the attack and released footage showing flames at the site in Bryansk oblast.

Ukraine drones hit Unecha station again

Brovdi said that operators of the 14th regiment of the Forces of Unmanned Systems carried out the strike. He added the phrase “repair it in 48 hours,” mocking Russia’s attempts to restore the station after the previous hit.

Brovdi, who is ethnic Hungarian, also wrote in Hungarian “Ruszkik haza!” meaning “Russians go home.”

His post included video of the burning facility and described the drones as “birds of the SBS” continuing their “journey through worms’ refineries” — Ukraine has been targeting not oily the pumping stations, but also Russia’s oil refineries.

Bryansk governor Alexander Bogomaz announced a missile alert in Unecha district on 21 August. By the morning of 22 August, he claimed two fixed-wing drones had been destroyed allegedly with “no casualties or damages.” 

Unecha’s role in Druzhba pipeline

The Unecha pumping station is part of Russia’s 5,500-kilometer Druzhba oil pipeline. The station is owned by the state company Transneft and has the capacity to pump 60 million tons of oil annually. Located in the settlement of Vysokoe in Unecha district, about 60 kilometers from Ukraine’s border, it is crucial for transporting Russian oil to the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga and for supplying Belarus’s Mozyr refinery.

Previous attacks on Druzhba

The Unecha pumping station had already been struck on 12 August, when Ukrainian forces destroyed two pumping stations, a technical building, and nearby equipment. That earlier attack also caused a large fire. The latest strike marks the second hit on the same target within nine days.

On 18 August, Ukraine’s General Staff reported a strike on the Nikolskoye-1 pumping station in Russia’s Tambov oblast, another Druzhba hub. That attack forced Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó to confirm a temporary suspension of Russian oil transit to Hungary, before announcing on 20 August that deliveries had resumed. Szijjártó also claimed that Hungary is Ukraine’s largest supplier of electricity.