LINKÖPING, Sweden — Almost every night over the past week, Ukrainian drones have struck Russia’s major oil and gas sites and ports in Leningrad Oblast on the Gulf of Finland — a new front that a top EU official tells Breaking Defense will impose “painful” consequences on Moscow. 

Kyiv targeted oil export terminals at Ust-Luga and Primorsk, along with the Kirishi refinery, sparking fires and disrupting Russia’s critical Baltic Sea energy infrastructure in its campaign against Moscow’s war funding. Plumes of smoke were visible from neighbouring Baltic countries and in satellite images.

“That’s painful for [the] Russian economy, because those ports … have a big part of Russian oil export. So, now Russia is facing problems which can diminish their possibilities to wage the war,” EU Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told Breaking Defense while he was visiting Sweden and Saab’s facility in Linköping on a March 27 “missile tour.”

He was joined during an interview by Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson, who said, “Ukraine has the full sovereignty and the right to defend itself inside and outside its territory. It’s Russia who is the aggressor in this war.”

Sweden is closely monitoring rising security challenges in the Gulf of Finland since the war in Ukraine spread north to Scandinavia’s eastern doorstep. 

Jonson declined to call the Baltic Sea a “war zone,” when asked. But he stressed that Russian-related threats — such as attacks on critical seabed infrastructure, GNSS disturbances or jamming, the shadow fleet, and a “more assertive behaviour by the Russian Baltic Fleet” — are “changing security demands in the Baltic Sea.” 

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Underlining his comments, stray drones ended up in all three Baltic countries during the last week, with Kubilius saying it’s possible those are Ukrainian systems that went off course due to electronic warfare from Russia. 

The EU commissioner and Swedish defense minister spoke to Breaking Defense during Kubilius’s most recent stop on his “missile tour” of Europe, which began earlier this month in Germany, Poland and Italy. France, and possibly Norway and the Netherlands, are also on the upcoming itinerary.  

The aim: to scale up European production of missiles and air-defense systems, as Kubilius emphasized that Europe cannot reply solely on the United States for key systems any longer. 

“Stockpiles are very empty for all different weapons, including missiles and ammunition,” he declared. 

The visit to Sweden forms part of a broader EU initiative aimed at supporting a planned €60 billion loan to Ukraine — potentially rising to €90 billion — to strengthen Ukrainian defense capabilities over the next two years. Kubilius noted that technical preparations for the loan are advancing, though political issues among EU leaders still need resolution.

Kyiv has identified three priorities: producing more than seven million drones this year, extended-range ammunition (especially 155mm), and missiles, which Kubilius called “the biggest challenge.”

During the Saab visit, Kubilius highlighted Sweden’s key role in missiles and early-warning platforms such as GlobalEye, but warned that demand for all systems is outpacing current capacity.

“As the numbers are increasing what Saab is producing, that is very good, but the demand, in my view, is still very high. So we need to look at how we can even additionally increase production,” he said.

The commissioner’s missile tour follows NATO chief Mark Rutte’s call for NATO to increase its missile and air defenses by 400 percent.

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Saab, with its European (MBDA) and American (Boeing) partners along with the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA), produces a wide range of missiles. However smaller suppliers in the defense supply chain are struggling to scale up without long-term contracts and fresh financing.

“Ramping up production is very crucial, and we need to look at what challenges and obstacles we need to overcome. Like I said, supply chains are a problem, then there’s the lack of common market problems on the borders, transferring military goods from one country to another,” Kubilius added and pointed at Saab’s work with German, French and Italian companies. 

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According to Kubilius, Gulf countries and US forces fired about 800 Patriot missiles in the first five days of the recent war with Iran, while annual US production stands at only around 750. Washington aims to raise output to 2,000 per year, but replenishing stocks could still take up to four years, he said. 

“Americans are producing good weapons, no doubt. But we need to ramp up our production simply because there is not enough production in the world, both for Ukraine and for us,” he said.

The commissioner was briefed on Saab’s production of the GlobalEye airborne surveillance platform and missiles including the RBS 15/70, Taurus (long-range strike cruise missile), MSHORAD (ground-based air defense system) and IRIS-T (air-to-air missile). Saab and Boeing have jointly developed the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB).

Jonson, the Swedish Defense Minister, also took the opportunity to hype up Saab’s GlobalEye and describe how it could become a key NATO asset as the alliance retires its AWACS fleet.

“A number of countries are working in a consortium and have expressed interest that GlobalEye should replace the AWACS as well,” he said.

Kubilius highlighted Saab’s surveillance technology as part of strengthening drone detection along NATO’s eastern flank. Referring to GlobalEye, he pointed to “those GlobalEye surveillance systems” as examples of advanced solutions that will help countries “see much better those drones which are coming into our territory.”

In November last year, the Netherlands Ministry of Defense announced on behalf of its partner countries that the multinational AWACS replacement programme had been halted. The Netherlands had joined seven partners, including the United States, to replace NATO’s aging AWACS fleet, due to reach end-of-life around 2035.

Partners are now seeking alternative solutions for a new fleet operational by 2035, with GlobalEye expected to be in the mix.