Ukraine claimed a strike on an important hub for Russia’s network of crude-exporting pipelines, though flows from the system to Europe seem to remain uninterrupted for now.
The attack on an oil-pumping station in Unecha caused damage and a large-scale fire in the area of the facility in Russia’s Bryansk region, near the border with Ukraine and Belarus, the General Staff in Kyiv said in a Facebook post. Explosions were heard in the storage area and where the main and support pumps are located, according to the statement.
It wasn’t possible to independently verify Ukraine’s claims on the Unecha strike. Russian oil-pipeline operator Transneft PJSC didn’t immediately respond to a Bloomberg request for comment.
The strike is the latest in a flurry of intensified drone attacks on Russian oil and gas infrastructure this month, ahead of a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Friday. Earlier this month Ukraine hit four Russian refineries, with operations at three plants owned by oil giant Rosneft PJSC being disrupted. On Tuesday, Ukraine said it attacked a key helium plant in Russia.
The Unecha station is a key facility of the Druzhba pipeline network, through which Russia sends its crude to Hungary and Slovakia, and transits Kazakh oil to Germany. The station is also part of the Baltic Pipeline System-2, a link that takes Russian crude to the port of Ust-Luga, the country’s second-largest oil-export facility on the Baltic Sea.
“Crude oil deliveries are on schedule,” Hungarian refiner Mol Nyrt. told Bloomberg on Wednesday, while the country’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, condemned the attack in a Facebook statement.
Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol said that so far there’s no record of any request “to change the approved current monthly schedule” for crude flows via the Druzhba link.
The flows of Kazakh oil through the Transneft system is being carried out as normal, without restrictions on the acceptance of oil from shippers, the country’s energy ministry said by email.
The Bryansk region’s governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said in a Telegram post that a fire broke out at a fuel infrastructure facility in the Unecha district as a result of Ukrainian rockets and drones attack. The fire has been put out, he added, without providing further details on potential damage.
