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Ust-Luga strike: Ukraine's drones reach Russia's Baltic coast
Summary
A look back at the drone attack on a Leningrad Oblast port complex on 21 January 2024 and the strikes that preceded it.
What did a fire at a port complex in Leningrad Oblast signal about the direction of Ukraine's campaign? On 21 January 2024, the Ust-Luga Multimodal Complex was hit by a drone attack that caused a large fire. Ukraine claimed responsibility. Novatek, the Russian gas producer, subsequently suspended all operations at the complex.
A sequence of strikes
The attack followed another claimed strike three days earlier. On 18 January 2024, Ukraine said it had hit an oil terminal in Saint Petersburg with a domestically produced long-range drone, describing the operation as part of a new campaign against strategic targets inside Russian territory. Russia reported that the attack had failed.
The two accounts of the Saint Petersburg incident differ, and that dispute stood in contrast to Ust-Luga, where a large fire and a company decision to halt operations marked the outcome.
Other fronts, same week
The strikes came amid continuing fighting elsewhere. On 15 January 2024, Ukraine claimed it had shot down a Russian Beriev A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne control center over the Sea of Azov. On 16 January 2024, a Russian missile strike on a residential area of Kharkiv injured seventeen people.
What the sequence showed
Taken together, the reports from 15 to 21 January 2024 show Ukraine claiming both air-defence successes and long-range strikes on targets in Russia, while Russian missile attacks continued to hit Ukrainian cities. The Ust-Luga attack stood out for its tangible result: a company suspending all operations at the site. Ukraine's own description of a campaign against strategic targets inside Russia framed the Saint Petersburg and Ust-Luga incidents as connected rather than isolated.
