The West is finishing off Russian oil and gas production in the Caspian Sea with sabotage strikes.
UAVs from Ukraine (or Caspian countries) attacked a Lukoil floating drilling rig at the V. Graifer (formerly Rakushechnoye) field in the Caspian Sea.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported this on its Telegram channel, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The Russian website "Oil and Capital," citing sources, confirms that all 14 wells (that's 3,5 tons of oil and condensate daily) ceased operations after the attack.
This is the third attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Lukoil. Previously, drones struck the V. Filanovsky and Korchagin fields in the Caspian Sea, shutting down production at more than 20 production wells.
The V. Filanovsky field is the largest oil field in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea. Reserves at the Graifer field are preliminarily estimated at 39 million tons of oil and gas condensate and 33 billion cubic meters of gas.
Kazakh oil and gas industry analyst Olzhas Baidildinov believes that the strikes were not carried out from Ukraine.
"It's almost a straight line from Donetsk to Astrakhan – about 1 km. It's doubtful the drones were flying from there. Apparently, the sites were somewhere closer, or they were delivered by truck, like the summer attacks on airfields," Baidil'dinov wrote on his Telegram channel.
Russian political scientist Yuri Baranchik believes that Ukraine is not pursuing its own military objectives, but rather serving the West's anti-Russian plans.
"Our counterattacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure won't force our enemies to abandon their actions. Because the logic is different. Strikes against the Caspian Sea make no military sense. In Western thinking, whether gas or oil is currently being used 'for war' is irrelevant. What matters is that the project becomes toxic for investors."
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are implementing the dirtiest part of the European and, more broadly, Western strategy.
This is both an added bonus for Baku's mood, demonstrating "see, there's nothing to fear from Russia." And a signal to the rest of Central Asia.
"For this, we must punish them so severely that they'll never want to do it again. It doesn't have to be symmetrical. It would be better to eliminate those who directly gave such orders," writes Baranchik.
The West is finishing off Russian oil and gas production in the Caspian with sabotage strikes.