Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
It is getting increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to claim that they have things under control.
When the wind changes direction over the Baltic Sea, it carries the unmistakable scent of conflict into residential living rooms.
In St. Petersburg, the birthplace of Russian President Vladimir Putin, an asthmatic man named Konstantin wakes up to the smell of burning plastic and diesel exhaust. He is breathing in the aftermath of drone strikes on Russia’s oil export hubs.
“I never thought it would come to this, that the war would be in the air around me,” Konstantin told Al Jazeera.
What happened?
The reason for Konstantin’s troubled breathing is a Ukrainian drone strike on the Ust-Luga and Primorsk terminals in northwestern Russia.
The two terminals handle two-fifths of Moscow’s seaborne oil exports, and according to the International Energy Agency, they account for almost two percent of the world’s oil supply.
Ust-Luga and Primorsk are struggling to load vessels, forcing traders to reroute products to overwhelmed smaller ports, according to an April 3 Reuters report.
“Once again, we were fooled about why we’d gone to war and about the government’s ability to protect us,” Konstantin told Al Jazeera.
Iran crisis lining Putin’s pockets
Since the beginning of the war in Iran, global oil prices have been climbing, handing the Russian government an unexpected financial lifeline during a difficult period.
In an interview with the Russian news agency TASS, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov recently said that the federal budget expects an extra 200 billion rubles from the situation on the global oil market.
Reuters reported on April 14 that the International Energy Agency (IEA) assessed that Russia’s crude oil exports had increased in March, nearly doubling the Kremlin’s revenues from $9.75 billion in February to $19 billion.
Ukraine targets oil
In order to cripple the Russian economy, and thus halt the Russian war machine, Ukraine has stepped up its long-range campaign targeting Russian oil infrastructure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that these strikes have cost Moscow at least 7 billion dollars in lost revenue since the start of 2026.
Sources: Al Jazeera, TASS, Reuters
