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Ukrainian drones hit major international oil pipeline in Russia

Ukrainian drones hit major international oil pipeline in Russia
Ukranian servicemen prepare to fire a BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket system toward Russian troops near the town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region on Feb. 15, 2025. (Ukrainian Armed Forces handout via Reuters)
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Updated 17 February 2025

Ukrainian drones hit major international oil pipeline in Russia

Ukrainian drones hit major international oil pipeline in Russia
  • Kyiv has targeted Russia’s energy infrastructure throughout the three-year conflict

MOSCOW: Ukrainian drones struck a key pumping station at a major international pipeline in southern Russia disrupting supplies from Kazakhstan, the operator said Monday.
Kyiv has targeted Russia’s energy infrastructure throughout the three-year conflict, seeking to hit sites it says supply fuel to Moscow’s army or heps provide funds to support its offensive.
In the latest attack overnight, seven explosive-packed drones hit a pumping station of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium which carries Kazakh oil across southern Russia for export via the Black Sea, including to western Europe.
“Oil transportation through the Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline system is carried out at reduced pumping modes,” it said on social media.
The 1,500-kilometer pipeline is owned by a consortium in which the Russian and Kazakh governments as well as Western energy majors Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell hold stakes.
In 2024 it loaded more than 63 million tonnes of oil onto tankers at a terminal at the southern Russian port of Novorossiysk, the company said.
The company said the attack hit the Kropotkinskaya pumping station — the pipeline’s largest in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.
Nobody was wounded and staff prevented the attack causing an oil spill, it added.
Both Moscow and Kyiv launched massive drone attacks in an overnight wave, days after US President Donald Trump called the leaders of both countries to press for a ceasefire.
Ukraine’s air force said it downed 83 out of 147 drones that Russia launched overnight, adding another 59 were “lost” without causing damage.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had “intercepted and destroyed” 90 Ukrainian drones, including 24 over the southern region of Krasnodar, where the Caspian Pipeline Consortium runs.
Ukraine’s grid operator Ukrenergo announced emergency outages in some regions of Ukraine “due to the consequences of Russian attacks on energy facilities.”


NATO's Rutte says nuclear drills showed alliance has strong deterrent

NATO's Rutte says nuclear drills showed alliance has strong deterrent
Updated 9 sec ago

NATO's Rutte says nuclear drills showed alliance has strong deterrent

NATO's Rutte says nuclear drills showed alliance has strong deterrent
  • Says "Putin must know that nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought"

BERLIN: NATO chief Mark Rutte said the success earlier this month of the military alliance's annual nuclear exercise gave him "absolute confidence in the credibility of NATO's nuclear deterrence" in the face of Russian threats.
"When Russia is using dangerous and reckless nuclear rhetoric, our populations must know that there is no need to panic, because NATO has a strong nuclear deterrent," he was quoted as saying by German weekly Welt am Sonntag.
"And (Russian President Vladimir) Putin must know that nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.”
Putin has repeatedly warned the West of potential nuclear consequences since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
He declared last month that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it was struck with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack.