The war just expanded by 1,000 miles. On Friday, December 19, 2025, Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SSO) pulled off a high-stakes “deep-strike” operation, proving that no corner of the Russian empire is out of reach. Using long-range kamikaze drones, Ukraine successfully targeted the Project 22460 “Hunter” (Okhotnik) patrol ship and a massive drilling platform at the Filanovsky oil field in the Caspian Sea.
For years, the Caspian Sea was considered Russia’s untouchable “rear area,” far from the frontlines. This strike didn’t just break a window; it shattered the myth of Russian rear-echelon security. While the SSO confirmed the hits on December 20, the true damage to Lukoil—Russia’s second-largest oil producer—is being felt in the pocketbook. With reserves of 129 million tons of oil, Filanovsky is a crown jewel of the Kremlin’s war chest, and it’s now officially a target.
The “Rage Trigger” Section: The Controversy Everyone is Ignoring
The media is calling this a “drone strike,” but they are ignoring the Geopolitical Earthquake it just triggered. The Filanovsky platform isn’t just a rig; it’s a node for 11% of Lukoil’s domestic crude production.
The real scandal? This strike happened near-simultaneously with a first-of-its-kind Ukrainian attack on a “shadow fleet” tanker in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya. Ukraine is no longer fighting a territorial war; they are conducting a global maritime insurgency. By hitting the Caspian and the Mediterranean on the same day, Kyiv has effectively “invalidated” the safety of Russian oil anywhere on the planet. Putin’s “petrodollars” are being burned at the source, and the Russian Navy’s state-of-the-art Rubin-class ships are proving to be nothing more than expensive targets for $50,000 cardboard drones.
Deep Background: The “2,000 KM” Reach
How did they get there? The Caspian Sea is over 700 km from the nearest Ukrainian-held border, but military analysts suggest these drones traveled over 1,800 km to reach the target.
The “dirty history” of the Project 22460 “Hunter” is that it was designed specifically to combat “surface and airborne threats” in coastal waters. It is literally a ship built to stop drones. The fact that several SSO drones hit the vessel while it was on patrol demonstrates a catastrophic failure of Russian electronic warfare (EW) and layered defense. If an Okhotnik-class ship can’t protect itself while guarding a billion-dollar oil rig, nothing in the Russian fleet is safe.
The Cold Hard Truth from the Insiders
“The platform extracts oil and gas that fills the Russian budget and funds the war,” an SSO source stated bluntly. The “Hard Truth” from energy insiders is that this strike has already frozen production from more than 20 oil and gas wells. Insiders in Moscow say the Kremlin is “fuming” because this forces them to pull S-400 air defense systems away from the frontlines in the Donbas to protect oil rigs in the middle of nowhere. Ukraine is winning the “war of misallocation”—making Russia choose between protecting its soldiers or its bank account.
