Kazakhstan condemned Ukraine for the attack on an oil terminal in Russia

Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has lodged a protest over what it called “yet another deliberate attack on the critical infrastructure” of the international Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in the waters of the seaport of Novorossiysk.

In a statement released on Sunday, 30 November, the ministry said that what happened was “already the third act of aggression against an exclusively civilian facility, whose operation is guaranteed by the norms of international law.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov emphasized the key role of the CPC in maintaining stability in the global energy system and recalled Kazakhstan’s commitment, “as a responsible participant in the global energy market,” to ensuring uninterrupted energy supplies. The Foreign Ministry views the incident “as an action damaging the bilateral relations between the Republic of Kazakhstan and Ukraine” and expects the Ukrainian side “to take effective measures to prevent such incidents in the future.”

Recall that on the morning of 29 November, the CPC’s marine terminal, through which Kazakhstan exports oil to Europe and the United States, halted loading operations after an attack by Ukrainian unmanned surface vessels. According to the company’s press service, one of the three single-point mooring buoys (SPMs) used to load oil onto tankers sustained “significant damage” in the strike. The nature of the damage was not specified, but the CPC statement noted that further operation of the SPM “is not possible.”

Following the attack, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy began redirecting oil exports to alternative routes. Ukraine has not confirmed its involvement in the attack.