Ukraine’s Long-Range Drones Hit Russian Caspian Oil Platform, Halting Production at Major Field

Long-range drones operated by the Alpha Special Operations Center under the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) struck the Filanovsky offshore oil platform owned by Lukoil-Nizhnevolzhskneft in the Caspian Sea, stopping production from more than 20 wells, a security official told Kyiv Post Thursday morning.

The platform is located in the northern Caspian Sea, roughly 1,150 kilometers (about 715 miles) from Ukraine and around 220 kilometers (135 miles) offshore from Russia’s Astrakhan region.

According to Kyiv Post’s source, the strike marks Ukraine’s first attack on Russian oil-extraction infrastructure in the Caspian Sea. At least four impacts on the platform were recorded.

The Filanovsky field is one of the largest discovered in Russia and in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea, holding an estimated 129 million tonnes of oil and 30 billion cubic meters of gas. Production from the site had been exported through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.

“The SBU continues successful special operations against Russia’s oil and gas sector, constantly expanding their geography. The ‘cotton’ in the Caspian Sea is another reminder to Russia that all of its enterprises working for the war effort are legitimate targets – wherever they are located,” the SBU source told Kyiv Post, referring to explosions as “cottons,” a sarcastic Ukrainian term used to describe explosions on Russian territory.

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