$150M Russian military fuel hub destroyed in single strike—70% of Krasnodar terminal capacity gone

 The night sky over Russia’s southern coast was lit by flames after a wave of Ukrainian drones struck the Temryuk Seaport in Krasnodar Krai on December 5, 2025, setting a major liquefied natural gas terminal ablaze. The attack, one of Kyiv’s deepest strikes into Russian territory, targeted a key hub in the fuel network that supports Russian military operations and energy exports.

Fuel Hub on the Sea of Azov

Temryuk Seaport, located on the Sea of Azov, has become an important logistics point for Russia’s war effort. The port handles liquefied hydrocarbons and other oil products that help supply Russian forces near the front lines.

The installation’s role as a fuel lifeline made it a priority objective for Ukrainian planners. By hitting facilities that feed the Russian military’s demand for fuel, Ukraine is attempting to degrade Moscow’s ability to sustain operations and move equipment across occupied territories.

Strike on a Critical LNG Terminal

At the center of the attack was a liquefied natural gas terminal operated by Maktren-Nafta. Built in 2008, the terminal has an annual processing capacity of up to 400,000 tons of LNG and is considered one of Russia’s important sources of military fuel.

Drones struck the terminal during the night of December 5, triggering a series of explosions that ripped through the storage area. According to Ukrainian assessments, 20 out of 30 storage tanks were destroyed, eliminating roughly 70% of the site’s storage capacity. The loss sharply curtailed the terminal’s ability to hold and distribute fuel, cutting into a significant route in Russia’s supply system.

The attack also ignited rail tankers loaded with liquefied gas positioned at the terminal, amplifying the scale and intensity of the fire and complicating efforts to bring it under control.

Fire, Damage, and Local Emergency Response

The blaze that followed the explosions burned for days. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said that at its peak the fire covered about 3,000 square meters. Russian emergency officials reported that through continuous firefighting work on December 6–7 they contained the blaze to an area of roughly 1,000–960 square meters.

Local emergency services deployed at least eight firefighting crews to the port, working over several days to control the flames around the damaged tanks and burning rail cars. Regional authorities confirmed that port infrastructure had been hit and acknowledged serious damage at the site, though no casualties were reported.

For nearby communities, the prolonged fire and repeated explosions underscored the severity of the strike. The incident highlighted both the hazards of attacking large fuel depots and the vulnerability of densely packed storage tanks and transport railcars once ignited.

Strategic and Legal Dimensions

Ukrainian officials describe the Temryuk operation as part of a broader strategy to undermine Russia’s offensive capacity by going after fuel infrastructure inside Russian territory. In early December, Ukrainian drones also hit refineries and depots, including the Syzran refinery in Samara region, in a coordinated effort to disrupt several layers of Russia’s military and energy logistics.

Ukraine’s General Staff has framed the Temryuk strike as a lawful operation under international humanitarian law, arguing that the LNG terminal constitutes a legitimate military objective because it directly supplies fuel to Russian armed forces. Legal specialists continue to debate how dual-use infrastructure that serves both civilian and military functions should be treated under the laws of war, but Kyiv maintains that the facility’s military role justifies the attack.

Beyond the immediate damage to storage capacity, Ukrainian sources estimate the economic loss from the strike at around $150 million, a figure still under review. The destruction affects not only internal distribution but also Russia’s ability to use the terminal for fuel exports, exerting pressure on an important revenue stream for the Russian state and its war budget.

Expanding Campaign and Russian Air Defense Challenges

The blow to Temryuk came amid a broader pattern of Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy and military assets. In addition to fuel depots and refineries, Ukrainian forces have targeted air defense systems that protect these sites. In Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian drones struck a Russian mobile fire group and a Pantsir-S1 air defense system, seeking to reduce Russia’s capacity to intercept future waves of drones aimed at infrastructure like Temryuk.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 41 Ukrainian drones were shot down on the night of the Temryuk attack, yet the fires and visible destruction at multiple facilities indicated that a significant number still reached their targets. The outcome pointed to gaps in Russia’s layered air defense and suggested that relatively small unmanned aircraft, used in numbers and guided onto specific nodes in the logistics network, can inflict outsized disruption.

Looking Ahead

The destruction of most of Temryuk’s storage tanks has left Russia with an immediate logistical problem: it must either repair and rebuild the terminal under the threat of further strikes or reroute fuel through other ports and depots that are already under strain and increasingly at risk. For Ukraine, the attack is both a tactical success and a signal of intent, reinforcing its stated plan to continue hitting fuel hubs, refineries, air defenses, and other key infrastructure supporting Russian military operations.

As the campaign continues, the contest is shifting further toward deep strikes and infrastructure warfare. The extent to which Russia can adapt its supply chains and harden critical sites—and whether Ukraine can maintain and scale its long-range precision attacks—will help determine the balance of military capability and the pace of operations in the months ahead.