The Russian government has transferred the function of shooting down drones in the Caspian Sea to Lukoil
Russia has approved a bill allowing oil companies’ security personnel to shoot down drones approaching their platforms in the Caspian Sea. This decision primarily concerns Lukoil’s facilities. In effect, this involves creating special zones where private security guards will have the right to independently respond to threats from the air, water, and underwater, according to Russian media reports.
The Russian Parliament has backed a bill that changes safety regulations around oil production platforms in the Caspian Sea and allows company security to shoot down or neutralize drones that pose a threat to their infrastructure.
Russian media report this, noting that the key beneficiary of the new rules will be Lukoil, which conducts industrial offshore production in the Russian part of the Caspian Sea and is the country’s largest private oil company.
Separately, the reports highlight the region’s legal status: the seabed of the Caspian Sea is not subject to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, as the body of water is enclosed, creating its own regulatory regime for extraction activities. Under the new regulations, security forces will be able to operate within clearly defined security boundaries—up to 500 meters from the outer edge of the platform in the air, as well as up to 500 meters vertically from the highest point of the facility, while underwater the zone will extend to the natural contours of the seabed.
Within these zones, it is permitted to suppress, intercept, damage, and destroy unmanned aerial, surface, underwater, and ground vehicles that may threaten the operation of production facilities.
In addition, to physically protect the infrastructure, the bill provides for the possibility of engaging units of the Russian National Guard or the company’s own private security forces, which effectively expands the range of security personnel around strategic facilities.
The explanatory materials accompanying the bill also explicitly mention Lukoil’s key platforms in the Caspian region, specifically the Yury Korchagin and Vladimir Filanovsky fields and complexes, as well as other production facilities involved in oil extraction and transportation.
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