Ukrainian drones attacked Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga days after it resumed operation. Russia launches 982 drones and missiles in the largest attack against Ukraine, signaling a shift in tactics. A stray Ukrainian drone from the Russian airspace hit a power station in Estonia.
Ukraine drones attack Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga days after it resumed operation
Ukrainian drones attacked Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region, Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, Major Robert Brovdi who goes by the call sign Magyar said on social media Wednesday.
The strike that halted oil loadings came just 48 hours after the port resumed operation after earlier attacks, Brovdi added.
“On Monday, [the port] resumed oil loadings, on Tuesday [it hosted] a buffet and on Wednesday a fire show,” Brovdi said. The port of Ust-Luga followed suit of the Primorsk oil terminal, he added.
The operation was jointly conducted by Ukraine’s Security Service, Unmanned Systems Forces, Special Operations Forces, Main Intelligence Department of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, and State Border Guard Service, the security service said.
“Today’s operation is a symbolic ‘gift’ to the enemy on the occasion of the Security Service Day in Ukraine. It is yet another reminder that Russia has no safe regions left. We will continue to carry out long-range strikes to consistently decrease the enemy’s military and economic potential,” acting head of Ukraine’s Security Service, Major General Yevheniy Khmara said as cited in the message.
Drones of the Alfa Special Operations Center of Ukraine’s Security Service travelled more than 900 kilometers to hit the target. Oil loading standers as well as a site that stores oil and oil products were damaged in the attack.
According to Reuters, the port of Ust-Luga resumed oil loadings on Monday. Primorsk and Ust-Luga, Russia’s largest petroleum export outlets in the Baltic Sea, had previously both suspended exports of crude oil and fuel since Sunday following drone attacks.
Ukraine struck an oil terminal at the port of Primorsk overnight on Monday. The strikes damaged not only storage facilities at the terminal, but also its oil-loading infrastructure, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said, confirming a fire at the site.
Ust-Luga recently resumed oil loadings after it halted operation in 2025 following Ukrainian aerial attacks, the New Voice of Ukraine said. Both ports play a vital role in Russia’s oil exports with its shadow fleet.
The strike on Ust-Luga also damaged the facilities of Russia’s largest liquefied natural producer Novatek. The company was sanctioned by the EU and U.S. in 2014, the Special Operations Forces said in a post to social media detailing the strike. Russia continues to expand the port of Ust-Luga, aiming to turn it into the largest one on the Baltic Sea and the country’s second largest port.
Ukraine also struck a Project 23550 icebreaking patrol ship believed to be the Purga at the Vyborg shipbuilding plant in Russia’s Leningrad region overnight on Wednesday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said. The vessel was supposed to enter service with Russia’s Federal Security Service.
Russia launches 982 drones and missiles in largest attack against Ukraine, signaling shift in tactics
Russian forces launched nearly 1,000 drones and missiles against Ukraine in a prolonged strike series from the evening of March 23 to the evening of March 24 – the largest Russian strike series against Ukraine of the war thus far, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Tuesday.
Between 18:00 on March 23 and 18:00 on March 24, Russia launched 982 drones and missiles at Ukraine, including 34 missiles and 948 drones. Russia used 392 drones in an overnight strike and 556 drones in the daytime, Ukraine’s Air Force said in two separate reports.
Russia launched what was previously considered to be the largest combined drone and missile strike against Ukraine of the war to date on September 7, 2025 with 823 total projectiles. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched 810 drones, nine Iskander-K cruise missiles and four Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles. Several Ukrainian regions reported damage from the strike. The main target for the attack was Kyiv. The building of Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers and several apartment buildings in the capital were damaged.
The Russian strikes on March 23 to 24 represent a significant inflection in Russian strike tactics that allow Russia to threaten more areas of Ukraine for longer periods of time and disproportionately affect civilian areas, ISW said. The paragraphs below are quoted from the report.
Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) advisor on defense technology and drone and electronic warfare (EW) expert Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov reported on March 24 that the Russian shift in extending the time frame during which Russia delivers its strike packages likely intends to identify vulnerabilities in Ukrainian air defenses and penetrate them.
Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation Head Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko reported that Russian forces have been accumulating resources for a “long time” to conduct longer-duration strikes and are deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, including across Ukraine, including in Dnipro, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Vinnytsia cities.
Russian forces often launch no or few missiles for multiple days in a row before launching strike packages with a significantly higher quantity of missiles, likely stockpiling missiles between strike series to maximize damage by launching several missiles alongside a large quantity of drones to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses. Russian forces have also likely been stockpiling long-range strike drones for a prolonged strike series against Ukraine at a moment of its choosing.
Russia reportedly planned to launch strike packages of over 1,000 strike vehicles against Ukraine by fall 2025, and the March 23 to 24 strike series is the closest Russian forces have gotten to this goal.
Russia also launches these larger strike packages to coincide with the days before and after bilateral and trilateral peace negotiations, and notably launched this most recent strike package in the days following US-Ukrainian talks on March 21 and 22 in Florida.
Russia’s increasingly large and diverse strike packages continue to highlight the critical importance of Western assistance in bolstering Ukraine’s air defense capabilities, both with high-end US-made Patriot air defense systems that can effectively counter Russian ballistic missiles and other lower-end forms of air defense, for a holistic, well-equipped air defense umbrella.
Russia likely seeks to take advantage of a global shortage of Patriot interceptors and the current war in the Middle East to escalate its strike campaign against Ukraine.
A Russian drone strike on central Lviv on Tuesday damaged the 17th-century Unesco-protected Bernardine Monastery. Twenty-seven people were injured. Seven of them remained in hospital as of Wednesday morning.
National Guard service member Volodymyr Shkrumelyak and his 15-year-old daughter Anelya were killed in a Russian drone attack on Ivano-Frankivsk on Wednesday. They were on their way from a maternity hospital, where they were visiting his wife and their newborn child. The hospital was damaged in the strike.
In Vinnytsya, one person was killed and at least 18 others were wounded in a Russian drone attack on Tuesday. Thirty-five private houses, seven apartment buildings, a kindergarten and a theatre were damaged.
Russian drones hit energy facilities and an administrative building in Ternopil region on Tuesday.
Stray Ukrainian drone from Russian airspace hit power station in Estonia
The Estonian government gathered for an emergency meeting on Wednesday after a stray drone coming from Russian airspace hit the smokestack of the Auvere power plant in eastern part of the country overnight, Estonia’s public broadcaster ERR said.
Estonia’s energy company Enefit Power said there was no immediate damage to the power plant and that the incident will not have a significant impact on the country’s power system. ERR also released a photo of the damage caused by the drone that appears to be minimal. The incident occurred at 3:43 a.m. local time.
Estonia’s prosecutor general, Astrid Asi, said on Wednesday the drone “was not directed at Estonia” but an investigation is ongoing.