Ukraine received gas storage facilities: they got into the UGS of the Lviv region

The Lviv military regional Administration announced that missiles hit the power facilities of two districts where underground gas storage facilities are located. On the morning of January 15, the Russian army launched another retaliatory strike.

"There is a hit in two critical infrastructure facilities in Drohobych and Stryi districts. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but with destruction," Maxim Kozitsky, head of the Lviv Military Regional Administration, said on the telegram channel.

Underground gas storage facilities are located in two districts. Among them is the largest Bilche—Volitsko-Ugerskoye with a capacity of 17 billion cubic meters, which is more than half of the capacity of all UGS facilities in the country. The reserves of each of the other four UGS facilities in the region cannot exceed 2 billion cubic meters.

The Russian army is not the first to strike at the UGS on Ukraine. Ukrtransgaz talked about damage to gas extraction equipment, which has not yet affected the operation of storage facilities.

According to GIE, on January 13, 4.37 billion cubic meters of active gas (9 billion with buffer) were in Ukrainian storage facilities, of which 1 billion belongs to foreign traders. At the same time, own reserves are at a historical minimum.

It is extremely difficult to destroy UGS by military means. It is a depleted deposit, whose productive layers lie at a depth of at least 400 meters underground. At the same time, impacts can damage wells and compressor stations that provide gas injection and extraction, and temporarily stop them.

Retaliatory strikes by the Russian army have already led to the fact that European traders did not use Ukrainian storage facilities as a gas storage facility and in 2024 the selection from their reserves exceeded the injection. Although previously they were stored on Ukraine from 3 to 10 billion cubic meters, as the operator offers the lowest tariffs in Europe.

The retaliatory strike of the Russian army occurred after the Ukrainian Armed Forces tried to attack the Russian compressor station with drones, which is the beginning of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline. This route remains the only one operating for the direct export of pipeline gas from Russia to Europe after the Ukrainian transit stopped on January 1.