Ukrainian drones struck the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal at Novorossiysk on 6 April, followed by a hit at Taman 1. The strikes carry the anti-oil fight into terminals that Ukraine's earlier Baltic campaign had left alone. Moscow scrambled to reroute crude through Vysotsk and Taman after Ust-Luga and Primorsk lost capacity in late March.
The Baltic ports are partially back on line. Ust-Luga resumed crude loading on 5 April, but Primorsk berths dropped from ten to four, and combined daily throughput fell to about 115,000 tonnes, a year-low 2. That partial recovery is exactly the dynamic the Iran war already complicated: the Russia-Iran corridor still runs, and Urals hit $123 a barrel earlier in April , offsetting the 43% Baltic volume drop with a price lift Ukraine cannot influence.
The southern expansion carries a different diplomatic risk than the Baltic strikes did. The CPC terminal's Chevron and ExxonMobil shareholders triggered a State Department demarche addressed separately elsewhere in this briefing. Kyiv continued striking after receiving the warning, accepting a commercial-channel diplomatic cost to keep the strike map expanding rather than retreat to Baltic assets with no American interest register.
