Ukraine’s Azov campaign eclipses the tanker wars of the 1980s

The blitz, which began in earnest on July 6, is designed to sever the fuel and logistics chains sustaining Russian forces in occupied southern Ukraine and Crimea. Kyiv’s Unmanned Systems Forces said 11 more Russian ships were hit overnight on Tuesday — five tankers, five cargo ships and a tugboat.   The nine-day tally has already surpassed the pace of the Iran-Iraq tanker war, which saw more than 450 attacks spread over seven years, according to data from maritime security firm Ambrey.   “The goal of the operation is to systematically disrupt the enemy’s logistics chain,” the Unmanned Systems Forces said, arguing that disabling tankers and auxiliary vessels chokes fuel supplies to Russian troops and the occupation grouping in Crimea.   Robert Brovdi, who commands the drone branch, said his forces “are working intensively to destroy Russia’s shadow fleet in the Sea of Azov”, with Kyiv also hoping to spark an exodus from Crimea, a popular Russian summer holiday spot to which Moscow has deployed an unprecedented number of tankers to shore up fuel reserves. In a symbolic strike on Tuesday, the Ukrainian navy said a Sargan-3000 sea drone destroyed the FSB border patrol ship Izumrud near Novorossiysk — a vessel that took part in the 2018 seizure of three Ukrainian navy ships in the Kerch Strait.

Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces said they have now expanded their campaign against Russia’s shadow fleet from the Sea of Azov into the Black Sea, claiming strikes on 20 Russian vessels last night.

Moscow’s response has been deadly. Russian drones and shells hit four ships in Odesa port and the Black Sea on July 13 and 14, Ukrainian officials said, killing eight seafarers and injuring 10. Among them was a Togo-flagged bulk carrier that caught fire while discharging fertiliser minerals; Ambrey reported three of its crew killed and four seriously injured.      The economic fallout is spreading. Around a quarter of Russia’s grain exports — the world’s largest wheat trade — normally move through Azov ports such as Mariupol and Berdyansk, a route Kyiv accuses Moscow of using to ship grain stolen from occupied territories. Commercial vessels have been unable to transit the Kerch Strait or the Azov-Don channel with Russia’s agriculture ministry conceding on Tuesday that shipments would be redirected to Black Sea and Baltic terminals if necessary.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov branded the campaign worse than piracy. “It is terrorism, pure and simple,” he said. A Ukrainian military source countered that the armed forces strike only military targets or those strengthening Russia’s combat capability: “Civilian cargoes are not among them.”   Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, condemned the Azov attacks on Monday, warning that “such acts endanger seafarers, threaten the safety of navigation, disrupt global supply chains and undermine the principles upon which international shipping depends.”