After a drone attack, a Russian oil port was on fire. Finland closed off part of the Baltic, drones entered Estonia

On the night of Monday into Tuesday, the port area of Ust-Luga on the Russian coast of the Gulf of Finland was burning after a drone attack. This was reported by the Russian governor, and Reuters confirmed that the fire had been extinguished. Less than an hour later, the Finnish military closed part of the airspace and sea off the city of Kotka, people in eight Estonian counties received phone alerts to seek shelter, Turkish NATO fighters took off from the Ämari base, and eastern Latvia also reported two air alerts. Three alliance member states were thus dealing on their own territory with the consequences of the same overnight wave of drones, and according to available reports no shots were fired in any of them.

The port that burned for hours

Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko announced on Telegram that drones had damaged the port area in Ust-Luga and that a fire had broken out there. According to him, Russian air defence had shot down 38 drones over Leningrad Oblast by 6 a.m., including 17 directly in the port area. Later that morning, he spoke of 44. Kyiv Independent ↗ Ilta-Sanomat ↗

According to Reuters, local authorities announced shortly after 9 a.m. that the fire had been extinguished. The Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat summed it up in a headline by saying that the port had been burning for hours. Helsingin Sanomat ↗

Ust-Luga is one of Russia's largest ports on the Baltic Sea, and its oil terminal is one of the main hubs for exporting oil and petroleum products. It lies west of St. Petersburg, far from the Ukrainian border, and is an important source of revenue for the state budget. It has been targeted repeatedly. The Ukrainian military attacked it in March and April, most recently on 14 August, when it damaged two processing facilities according to the General Staff. Kyiv Independent ↗

What exactly happened this time is not certain. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear, and Kyiv Independent explicitly notes that it cannot verify the claims made by Russian officials. Ukraine has not officially claimed responsibility for the attack. Kyiv Independent ↗

Russia - where it burned

1. overnight into TuesdayUst-Lugaoil terminal, fire extinguished after 9 a.m.open map

116 km

Finland - closed-off stretch of sea

1. 3.30 to 6.10Kotkaairspace and navigation closed, no drone enteredopen map

140 km

Estonia - two alerts

1. around 3.00Narvadrone turned back toward Russia, did not breach the airspaceopen map
2. around 3.00Ämari baseTurkish NATO fighters took off from hereopen map

365 km

Latvia - two alerts

1. the same nightLudza districtfirst Latvian air alertopen map
2. shortly afterAlūksne districtsecond alert, NATO fighters took offopen map

↑ north

Finland: a precautionary measure, no drone

The Finnish Defence Forces imposed temporary restrictions on aviation and navigation in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland shortly after 3:30 a.m. They lifted them for the airspace at 6 a.m. and for the sea area at 6:10. Ilta-Sanomat ↗

According to the transport agency Fintraffic, the closed sea area lay off Kotka, bounded to the west by Kaunissaari Island, to the north by the port of Hamina, and to the east and south by the territorial waters boundary. Helsingin Sanomat ↗

The military also stressed that not a single drone strayed into Finland. "The restrictions were a precautionary measure intended to ensure the safety of uninvolved persons and to create conditions for the authorities to act against possible drones," it said on X. Yle ↗

More important than the incident itself is the note attached to it by Finland's public broadcaster Yle. The military has declared such zones in the Gulf of Finland several times in recent weeks, and each time it was linked to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia. This is therefore not an exception, but a pattern that has taken hold. Yle ↗

Estonia: one drone crossed the border

While Finland describes a precautionary step, Estonia reports something else. The commander of the Estonian Air Force, Brigadier General Riivo Valge, said in a morning broadcast on public broadcaster ERR that around 2 a.m. it was clear to him that these were Ukrainian drone strikes on western Russia, and that Estonian systems had seen about a dozen drones near the border. ERR ↗

At 3 a.m., one of them headed toward Narva. The Estonians activated ground-based air-defence units, and Turkish fighters stationed at Ämari as part of NATO's rotational mission took off. That drone eventually turned back toward Russia and did not violate Estonian airspace. ERR ↗

About half an hour later, a second incident occurred, and this one ended differently. "It had already crossed the Estonian border and remained close to the border zone. Its behaviour, however, was unpredictable, and I remind you that there were even more of them just beyond our border," Valge said. A second alert followed, this time in six southern counties. Altogether, warnings were issued to residents of eight counties between 3 and 4 a.m., and people there were instructed to seek shelter if they spotted a drone. The threat subsided at 5:30 a.m. ERR ↗

"Fortunately for us, the drones in Estonia did not crash, the aircraft did not start shooting, so we do not have any missiles lying around anywhere either," Valge summed up. ERR ↗

Colonel Uku Arold from the Estonian military's strategic communications unit added that the drones were moving parallel to Estonia's and Latvia's eastern border. That matches what was happening a bit further south that same night. Latvia reported two air alerts in its east, first in Ludza district and then in Alūksne district near the Estonian border, and fighters from the NATO Baltic air-policing mission took off there as well. ERR ↗

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna wrote on X that the drones had "entered Estonian airspace". "NATO reacted quickly and exactly according to plan. The alliance is vigilant and ready to defend allied territory. Such cases are a direct consequence of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and underline the need to increase pressure on Russia to end its aggression," he said. ERR ↗

Why these three countries are the ones affected

The explanation is in a single sentence that ERR attaches to both of its reports as routine context. Previous alerts in Estonia came when Ukrainian attack drones strayed off course, often because of GPS signal jamming, during attacks on Russian oil infrastructure on the Baltic coast. ERR ↗

Russian oil terminals on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland lie in a narrow strip between three alliance countries. Ust-Luga is only a few dozen kilometres from the Estonian border and across the width of the gulf from the Finnish coast. Estonian sources in earlier cases described drones possibly straying because of GPS jamming. A similar mechanism would explain why some of the drones end up over the territory of states that are not party to the war, even though with any particular flight nobody usually confirms that.

At the same time, the campaign producing this effect is successful from Ukraine's point of view. Strikes on Russian oil depots and refineries, according to Kyiv Independent, are deepening the domestic fuel crisis, which has already brought export bans, rising prices, and sales restrictions. Kyiv Independent ↗

That produces an uncomfortable trade-off. The more effectively Kyiv strikes Russian oil infrastructure near the Baltic, the more often Finns will close off a stretch of sea and Estonians will send people alerts to hide.

Also read: Germany is preparing a response to a drone in Leipzig. It has not named the culprit even after almost a month

What is not certain in this report

Everything we know about what happened directly at the port comes from the Russian governor. Kyiv Independent labels this unverifiable, and the extent of the damage remains unknown. Ukraine has not confirmed the attack.

That drones were indeed flying over western Russia that night does not rest on Moscow alone. The commander of the Estonian Air Force described it independently, saying Estonian systems saw about a dozen drones near the border. What is therefore not in dispute is that drones were flying near the Estonian border that night. What remains open is exactly what happened at the port and what damage was caused there.

The figures on the number of drones shot down also differ; those numbers rose during the morning, and they too come from the Russian side. And the difference between the Finnish and Estonian reports is not a formality. Helsinki says nothing entered its airspace, while Tallinn speaks of a border violation. These are two different degrees of the same problem, and it is better not to conflate them.

Illustrative photo: aerial view of the Ust-Luga port complex on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, with the terminal tanks in the background on the right. Photo press service of Novotrans, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

What hotinfo is watching

Whether the Ukrainian General Staff will claim responsibility for the attack on Ust-Luga, as it did for the strike on 14 August.

How long the terminal will remain out of full operation and whether this will affect Russian oil exports across the Baltic.

Whether the Finnish military will declare another restriction zone in the Gulf of Finland, in other words whether the frequency of these measures is increasing.

Whether Estonia or Latvia will change the rules for alerting the population after this night, or the posture of the NATO mission protecting Baltic airspace.

Whether any stray drone will ultimately crash on the territory of a NATO member state, and what the alliance's response will be.