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SBU drones hit Russian Caspian Sea oil platform for third time in a week, source says

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SBU drones hit Russian Caspian Sea oil platform for third time in a week, source says
Lukoil’s ice-resistant fixed platform LSP-1 stands in the Caspian Sea near Russia’s Korchagin oil field on April 10, 2011. (MIKHAIL MORDASOV/AFP via Getty Images)

Drones operated by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) struck a Russian offshore oil production platform in the Caspian Sea for a third time in the past week, halting operations at one site, a source in the agency who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Kyiv Independent.

The long-range drones, operated by the SBU’s Alpha Special Operations Center, hit a platform at the Korchagin oil and gas condensate field run by Lukoil-Nizhnevolzhskneft, the source said, damaging critical equipment and forcing operations to halt.

Global Energy Monitor’s GEM.wiki tracker lists Korchagin’s 2023 oil production at about 7.33 million barrels (roughly 20,000 barrels per day) with a capacity of 1 billion cubic meters a year.

SBU drones previously struck oil platforms at the Filanovsky and Korchagin fields on Dec. 11 and Dec. 12.

The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the claims.

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Jared Goyette

Assistant Editor, War Desk

Jared Goyette is an American journalist based in Kyiv and an assistant editor on the Kyiv Independent’s War Desk. His reporting has appeared in The Nation and on PRI’s “The World,” and he previously served as the English-language editor for The Ukrainians Media. His work has also appeared in The Guardian and The Washington Post.

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