Ukraine's Black Sea attacks may prove counter-productive

Ukraine’s extension of the conflict into the wider region risks fuelling tensions with its neighbours. 

WHAT: Ukraine risks alienating its allies by attacks on the CPC pipeline system and tankers in the Black Sea.

WHY: The country launched attacks on CPC facilities in Novorossiysk and tankers approaching the port at the end of November.

WHAT NEXT: Any disruption of CPC’s oil flow hurts Kazakhstan and its Western partners far more than it affects Russia. Ukraine’s further targeting of vessels will also anger Turkey and potentially other countries surrounding the Black Sea or reliant on trade through the area.

Ukraine’s extension of the conflict with Russia beyond its own borders has once again affected crude flows through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which handles not only Russian oil but significantly larger volumes of Kazakh crude.

In February a Ukrainian drone strike damaged a CPC pumping station in the North Caucasus, and in September another attack was launched against CPC’s offices in Novorossiysk, the location of the Black Sea terminal that loads the pipeline system’s oil onto tankers for delivery to international markets, causing several deaths. Then on November 29, the terminal’s offshore loading facilities were hit, disrupting oil exports. The extent of this disruption and how long it will last is unclear.

Ukraine also struck two tankers that are part of Russia’s shadow fleet and under sanctions as they were approaching the terminal. One suffered an explosion and was disabled, while the other was reported to be in stable condition.

These attacks are part of a broader campaign by Ukraine to hamper Russia’s oil industry and therefore the revenues Moscow relies on to fund its war against Kyiv. This campaign has also seen Ukraine ratchet up drone strikes against Russian oil refineries, aimed at curbing Kremlin revenues as well as restricting fuel supply to the Russian military.

Moscow has condemned the attacks on CPC facilities and tankers in the Black Sea as acts of terrorism, though they are considered legitimate targets from the perspective of Ukraine’s military, particularly in light of Russia’s continued targeting of Ukrainian energy infrastructure over the past three years.

However, the impact of these strikes on Russia has so far been relatively minor. Furthermore, they are fuelling tensions between Ukraine and its allies.

Limited impact on Russia

CPC certainly does transport considerable volumes of Russian oil, averaging roughly 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2024. But this amounts to only 15% of the total supply the pipeline system handled that year. The rest was oil from Kazakhstan’s three largest oilfields: Tengiz, Kashagan and Karachaganak. Around four-fifths of Kazakhstan’s oil exports flow through CPC, and while the government has made efforts in recent years to diversify its export routes through increased shipments across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, progress so far has been limited.

Most of CPC’s shareholders are the same Western oil companies involved in Kazakhstan’s largest oilfields, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and Eni, as well as Kazakhstan’s national oil company KazMunayGas (KMG) and various Russian concerns. CPC is not designed to make a profit but merely to ensure delivery of the oil of its shareholders to global markets.

Sergey Vakulenko, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, noted in a recent article that Russia’s potential losses from the complete closure of CPC would stem from lost dividends and taxes from the pipeline’s operations, as well as additional costs to transport 200,000 bpd of Russian oil by rail from the North Caucasus to Novorossiysk. He estimates Russia’s lost dividends and taxes at $0.5bn based on total revenue in 2024, and extra railroad fees at $100–150mn.

In other words, Russia would lose $0.6–0.65bn annually, which although not a small amount still pales in comparison to the $27bn that Kazakhstan and the IOCs would lose.

According to Reuters, exports from the Novorossiysk terminal amounted to only 2.5mn tonnes (50,000 bpd) in November, down from scheduled loadings for Urals, Siberian Light and KEBCO of 3.2mn tonnes. While the drone strikes played a role, so too did severe storms during the month.

Fuelling regional tensions

Ukraine’s expanding campaign against Russian energy infrastructure is also beginning to carry growing diplomatic costs among some of the very countries that have provided Kyiv with economic, military and political support since the start of the war. While most Western governments continue to back Ukraine’s right to self-defence, the spillover effects of its strikes beyond Russia’s borders — particularly when they affect third-party assets, global energy flows or civilian maritime traffic — are increasingly generating unease among key regional partners.

Nowhere is this tension more apparent than in relations with Kazakhstan, whose economy is exceptionally exposed to disruptions at CPC. Kazakhstan has sought to maintain a posture of geopolitical balancing since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, avoiding formal alignment with Moscow while also refraining from joining Western sanctions. The country relies heavily on CPC for its oil revenues, which underpin state finances, social spending and broader economic stability. Any prolonged disruption to CPC therefore strikes at the heart of Kazakhstan’s economic security, even if the immediate military target is infrastructure in Russia. It would also hurt the profits of IOCs based in countries that have provided Kyiv with significant political, economic and military support over the past three years. 

Kazakhstan has repeatedly urged Ukraine to stop attacking CPC. On November 30, its foreign ministry stressed that the target of the attacks was “an exclusively civilian facility whose operation is safeguarded by norms of international law."

The ministry said Kazakhstan “expresses its protest over yet another deliberate attack on the critical infrastructure of the international Caspian Pipeline Consortium in the waters of the Port of Novorossiysk.”

"We view what has occurred as an action harming the bilateral relations of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Ukraine, and we expect the Ukrainian side to take effective measures to prevent similar incidents in the future,” it added.

Furthermore, a considerable share of the Kazakh oil that CPC flows to delivered to Europe, which has increased its reliance on this supply after ending Russian oil imports in 2023.

Notably the attacks on the Russian tankers took place in Turkey’s exclusive economic zone. The government in Ankara has maintained friendly ties with both Russia and Ukraine, refusing to join some Western sanctions on the former while also providing some military support to the latter. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the attacks on tankers were “unacceptable.” 

“The war between Russia and Ukraine has clearly begun to threaten navigational safety in the Black Sea. The targeting of vessels in our Exclusive Economic Zone … signals a worrying escalation," Erdogan told reporters, according to Reuters. 

Explosions, drifting hulls or sinking vessels in a crowded maritime corridor pose significant risks for Turkey. The vessels did not hold any oil at the time, but had they been loaded with crude, the attacks could have caused an oil spill that would carry severe environmental and economic consequences for Turkey’s coastline, fisheries, tourism industry, and port infrastructure.

While Ukraine’s target is only Russia’s shadow fleet, there is also the inevitable risk that it might strike the wrong vessel accidentally, owned or operated by a company in any one of its ally countries and sparking a diplomatic crisis.