Ukrainian drone strikes have halted operations at one of the largest Russian ports in the Baltic Sea.

On January 29, a raid by Ukrainian drones on Russia likely paralyzed operations at one of the country's major oil ports – Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea.

Source. This was reported by Bloomberg citing a source familiar with the situation.

According to the agency's informant, operations at the port, through which tankers export every fifth barrel of Russian oil, came to a halt on Wednesday.

Previously, there was a drone strike in the Tver region, where, according to Governor Igor Rudeni, 9 drones were shot down near the city of Andreapol.

A senior Ukrainian official told Bloomberg that the target of the raid was an oil pumping station in Andreapol – part of the "Baltic Pipeline System-II," which transports oil to Ust-Luga from the "Druzhba" pipeline leading to Europe.

The official stated that the pumping of raw materials to the port had to be halted. The last tanker departed from Ust-Luga on Wednesday morning, Bloomberg notes.

Last year, an average of 650,000 barrels of Russian oil per day were exported through Ust-Luga, which is among the top 5 largest ports in Europe. However, in the last weeks of December, shipments from the port decreased by nearly 40%, and in January they reached their lowest levels since 2021.

This was preceded by an accident at a major pumping station of "Transneft" in the Bryansk region, which caused the pumping of oil through "Druzhba" to be suspended.

Ust-Luga port itself, located more than 900 km from the Ukrainian border, was hit by a drone strike on January 6. Although several fuel tanks were damaged as a result of the strike, this did not affect shipments from the port, Bloomberg reported.

The January 29 raid was the second largest of the year so far: according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, at least 104 drones were involved. Governor of the Smolensk region Vasily Anokhin reported an attempted strike on the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant, while in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the target of the drones was the Sibur-Kstovo oil refinery. Due to the fire, it was forced to halt production.

On January 24, the Ryazan oil refinery of Rosneft, which is among the top 5 largest in Russia, stopped operations due to a fire following a drone strike.