Ukrainian drones attacked Russia’s Leningrad Region for the third night in a row: Ukrainian telegram channels Cyberborosno and Exilenova+ claim that the oil ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk were “repeatedly hit simultaneously” during the night.
The Ukrainian army had already attacked these two ports the other day, the strikes were confirmed by the AFU General Staff. Kiev has not yet commented on the attack on the night of 27 March.
A satellite image confirmed that the fire in the port of Ust-Luga broke out in the morning of 27 March with renewed vigour after another drone strike.
The Russian Defence Ministry reported 85 downed Ukrainian drones on the night of 27 March over eight regions, occupied Crimea and the Black Sea.
Alexander Drozdenko, the governor of Russia’s Leningrad Region, said 36 drones were shot down over the region.
At St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, 28 flights have been cancelled and more than 50 are delayed. Several planes have been diverted to alternate aerodromes.
Meanwhile, the governor of the Vologda region, Rfsgeorgey Filimonov, reported that “eight arrivals have been recorded as a result of a UAV attack at an industrial site in Cherepovets.”
In a subsequent message, he wrote that “10 UAVs were shot down over the Cherepovets industrial site.” According to him, there was no damage to infrastructure and no one was injured.
Ukrainian monitoring channels Exilenova+ and Supernova+, citing local residents, reported that the target of the attack was Apatit JSC.
The company’s website states that it is Europe’s largest producer of phosphate fertilisers, phosphoric and sulphuric acids, as well as one of Russia’s leaders in terms of NPK fertilisers, ammonia and ammonium nitrate output.
Local residents on social networks confirm that they heard explosions near the chemical plant. They also complain about the lack of alerts about the drone attack: there was no siren in the city, no one received messages.
The Russian publication Astra, citing its OSINT analysis, also claims that Severstal was also the target of the attack. One of the drones likely hit the company’s Blast Furnace Shop, this follows from a video taken by an eyewitness about two kilometres from the site of the fire.
According to Reuters, at least 40 per cent of Russia’s oil export capacity has been knocked out by Ukrainian drone attacks, tanker hijackings and the shutdown of the Druzhba oil pipeline. This is equivalent to about two million barrels per day.