A succession of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian fuel terminals on the Baltic Sea is hitting the Kremlin’s top source of revenue – but risks dragging Nato into conflict with Moscow.
Attacks over the past month on the Primorsk and Ust-Luga port facilities, east of St Petersburg and close to the borders with Estonia and Finland, have caused estimated damages of more than £730m, caused a record drop in oil exports and hit production forecasts at a time of surging fuel prices due to the Iran war.
Revenue from oil and gas accounts for more than 60 per cent of Russia’s total exports value, according to official statistics.
Russian officials and media claim the strikes have been so effective because they are travelling over the airspace of Nato member Baltic countries – Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania – citing as evidence several crashes of Ukrainian drones on the territory of those countries.
Kremlin spokesperson Maria Zakharova said last week the Baltic states “have received an appropriate warning” and would “have to deal with a response” if they do not heed it.
Influential military blogger Alexander Kots said Russia should respond through strikes inside the Baltic nations. “A drone launched with Russian infrastructure in its sights and flying through foreign airspace must be shot down in that foreign airspace,” he said.
The governments of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have all denied that they are allowing Ukraine to use their airspace for attacks, labelling such claims as “Russian disinformation”, and describing drone crashes inside their borders as accidents.
Ukraine has also denied Russia’s charges and issued a statement apologising to the Baltic states over “incidents” on their territory.
Russian drones have also entered neighbouring countries on several occasion during the war.
Drone routes
Police at the scene of a drone crash in Estonia on 31 March (Photo: Anni Onneleid/Delfi Meedia/Handout/Reuters)John Foreman, a British former defence and Nato official who has served in Moscow and Kyiv, suggested that Russian claims were intended to conceal military failures.
“Because their own air defences and surveillance are inadequate, they have to find conspiracy theories to explain to their population how Ukraine – deemed inferior to Russia – manages to strike targets deep inside their country,” he said.
Open-source investigators suggest that the Ukrainian drones used to strike the Baltic terminals could have travelled almost entirely over Russian territory, citing alerts in Russian towns around the time of drone attacks.
But Colonel Markus Reisner, a specialist on the Ukraine conflict and head of officer training at Austria’s Theresian Military Academy, believes that Baltic states could be turning a blind eye to some Ukrainian use of their airspace – rather than allowing this a formal policy – noting Kyiv’s practice of launching attacks from third countries.
“Think of the Ukrainians in Libya,” he said, referring to Ukrainian covert operations to attack Russian shadow fleet tankers from the north African country.
A Ukrainian defence source did not comment on the Russian claims, but said a “tacit agreement” that allowed Kyiv the use of Baltic airspace would offer military advantages, such as a shorter and safer flight path, and the ability to attack from an “unexpected direction.”
Russia is scaling up defensive measures in the Leningrad region where the Baltic Sea installations are located. Governor Alexander Drozdenko said this week that seven concrete towers and observation posts had been built to guard sensitive sites, with 80 mobile fire teams deployed.
Drzodenko said his region, which had been largely spared from attacks during the attacks, was now on the “front line” due to its border with Nato territory.
Oil storage facilty at the Ust-Luga port in Russia’s Leningrad region (Photo: Vladimir Soldatkin/Reuters)Russian threats
The moves come amid mounting concerns over Russian threats to the alliance’s eastern flank.
The head of Sweden’s armed forces, Michael Claesson, warned this week that Moscow could seek to capture an island in the Baltic Sea to test Nato’s commitment to mutual defence, at a time when US involvement has been thrown into doubt by Donald Trump.
A Russian incursion would not “have to be particularly extensive at all but more to make a point and wait to see what might happen politically,” he told The Times, calling for steps to establish deterrence
A new paper from the Lithuania-based think tank the Baltic Defence Initiative warned that Russia could capture the Baltic nations within three months in late 2027 in a scenario of Nato’s leading members withdrawing support, resources, and manpower.
The Estonian government is scrambling to respond to a project promoted by Russian communities online dubbed the “Narva People’s Republic” that would see Narva, a largely Russian-speaking town on the border between the countries, be absorbed into Russia through similar tactics as those used in eastern Ukraine.
A map circulating in Russian online communities showing the ‘Narva People’s Republic’ in Estonia that would be absorbed into Russia (Photo: Social media)The scheme is not officially endorsed by the Kremlin. But Estonia’s Prime Minister, Kristen Michael, said it was “an information operation created by Russia to sow discord”.
Colonel Reisner suggested the project fit within Russia’s playbook for deniable “gray-zone” warfare. “They are playing with us every day,” he said.
The officer also pointed to an announcement by Russia’s defence ministry this week, listing a series of addresses across Europe that it claimed were companies involved in Ukraine’s drone production programme.
This was likely to signal an imminent increase in covert attacks, he suggested, citing recent sabotage attacks on infrastructure across the continent.
Colonel Reisner added that Russia saw the Baltic states as a weak link in the Nato alliance. “We have to prove they are wrong,” he said.
Baltic defences
The UK is heavily involved in Nato’s easternmost presence, leading a multinational battlegroup in Estonia of about 1,500 British, French, and Icelandic forces, and a Joint Expeditionary Force of 10 nations covering the Arctic, North Atlantic and Baltic region.
The first deployment of the UK’s new Challenger 3 tanks will be in Estonia, as well as new armoured infantry vehicles.
British forces have conducted recent exercises in the region, and the Defence Secretary, John Healey, has sought to forge closer ties with local governments.
But Foreman suggested that a lack of investment in the military was weakening deterrence. “To lead and deter we have to be credible,” he said. “Dithering on defence is damaging that credibility.”
British troops take part in military exercises in Estonia in February (Photo: Ben Birchall/PA)Political sources in the Baltics say Russian threats are a concern, but have become normalised over a long history.
Vootele Päi, a former special adviser in Estonia’s interior ministry, now head of defence technology at Tehnopol science and business park in Tallinn, said: “Having observed Russian warmongering and disinformation campaigns for almost 20 years, Russian threats to us are as unprecedented as Mondays.”
“In the Baltic states, we keep calm and carry on. We have been living next to Russia for long enough.”
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