Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil terminals disrupt exports, bring war to St Petersburg streets

The smell arrived before the understanding. Residents of St Petersburg began noticing it two weeks ago—a sharp, layered stench that shifted between diesel fumes, burning plastic, and something like rotten eggs. Konstantin, a 53-year-old who has lived through the entire war, stood outside his apartment and tried to name what he was breathing. "I never thought it would come to this," he said, "that the war would be in the air around me." The smell was coming from fires burning at two massive oil terminals on opposite sides of the Gulf of Finland: Ust-Luga and Primorsk. Ukrainian drones, traveling more than 1,000 kilometers from their launch points, had struck storage tanks and shipping infrastructure. The fires burned for days.

These were not random targets. Ust-Luga and Primorsk are the arteries through which Russia moves its oil to the world. Together they handle roughly two-fifths of all Russian seaborne oil exports—crude flowing from the Volga region, the Ural Mountains, and western Siberia, funneled through pipelines to the coast and then onto tankers bound for global markets. When the drones hit, they didn't just damage buildings. They disrupted the sharpest drop in Russia's Baltic oil exports since 2022. Bloomberg calculated the immediate cost to Moscow at $1 billion. The International Energy Agency noted that the terminals handle nearly 2 percent of global oil supply. Both ports remain unable to ship cargo. Traders are scrambling to reroute oil through smaller ports that were never designed to handle this volume.

The targeting is deliberate strategy. Ukraine has spent the past three years focusing on Russian energy infrastructure—more than a dozen oil refineries and terminals have been damaged, at least eight sites struck. The logic is straightforward: reduce Russia's oil revenue, which funds the war machine. The drones Ukraine now deploys can travel roughly 1,500 kilometers and carry up to 120 kilograms of explosives. They are long-range weapons born from necessity. In 2023, after a major counteroffensive failed along the 1,200-kilometer front line, Ukraine shifted tactics. Energy infrastructure became the target.

Russian officials have accused European countries of allowing these drones to pass through Baltic airspace—a claim that Ukrainian experts reject as implausible. Andrey Pronin, an analyst, noted that flying over the region would be nearly impossible given the presence of numerous civilian airfields and strict air traffic permissions. "If you fly over them, the cat's out of the bag," he said. The strikes, he argued, were planned within Russian territory and succeeded by bypassing air defense systems. The dispute over routes matters less than the result: the terminals are burning, the exports are stopped, and St Petersburg residents are living with the consequences.

The timing creates a strange paradox. Global oil prices are rising anyway, driven by the US-Israel conflict with Iran and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Every $10 increase in the price per barrel brings an estimated $1.6 billion in additional monthly income to the Kremlin. So even as Ukraine destroys export capacity, the price of what Russia can still sell climbs. Analysts have noted an unintended consequence: rising oil prices also strengthen Iran's financial and strategic position. "They objectively strengthen Iran's influence and financial capabilities," said Nikolay Mitrokhin.

Konstatin's frustration points to something deeper than the smell. "Once again, we were fooled about why we'd gone to war and about the government's ability to protect us," he said. The war, which began as something distant, has become intimate—visible in the sky, audible in the night, now tangible in the air itself. Meanwhile, the asymmetry of damage continues. Russia has carried out large-scale attacks on Ukrainian power and heating infrastructure, leaving millions without electricity during winter months. A resident in Crimea named Abdulla described the nightly reality: "We watch fireworks in the sky every night. The shelling is constant."

Ukraine has proposed a moratorium on attacks on energy facilities as part of possible negotiations, using the strikes as leverage. But analysts suggest the war's trajectory remains unchanged. President Vladimir Putin, they say, is committed to continuing the conflict despite ongoing peace talks. The drones will keep flying. The terminals will keep burning. And in St Petersburg, residents will keep waking to a smell that reminds them the war is no longer something happening elsewhere.