Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces launched a furious drone campaign starting July 6, striking nearly 50 vessels—mostly aging oil tankers supplying occupied Crimea—over 120 hours, peaking at 14 hits on July 9.
Thermal videos from the 414th Brigade show drones targeting convoys near Crimea, corroborated by OSINT analysts confirming at least 13 strikes overnight into July 10, while inland raids hit oil depots and a missile optics plant.
The attacks disrupt Russia’s shadow fleet logistics without risking Ukrainian lives, drawing memes likening Azov to the repeated Russian losses at Chornobaivka.
Vladimir Putin’s shadow fleet ships have been blitzed with 12 new attacks overnight, as 47 of Russia’s vessels are hit in one week.
Mad Vlad’s tankers bring fuel to occupied Crimea and other Russian occupied regions, and export the liquid gold to fund the Kremlin’s faltering war machine.
But recent attacks on the fleet have left Russia in the grips of a fuel crisis, with brawls breaking out at petrol stations and huge queues clogging up roads.
Most of the 47 vessels obliterated this week were tankers shipping fuel to Crimea and other Russian-controlled territories, as Ukraine tries to choke off supplies to the regions.
And petrol pumps are running dry across Russia, leading to buying bans across the country.
As attacks on oil refineries ramp up, exports have stalled too, cutting off the Kremlin’s cash from sales of sanctioned fuel.
The crisis is “catastrophic”, one report warned, as the Kremlin scrambled to cover up the calamitous consequences of the strikes.
Independent Russian news outlet Meduza warned: “The authorities are trying to keep information about the extent of the damage to Russian oil refineries secret.”
Their investigators have studied the data, and say it shows a complete “collapse” of Russian fuel supplies.
Even before the most recent strikes, the volume of trading dropped to 53 per cent of January’s level, and the prices rocketed up to 146 per cent.
It comes as Ukraine staged huge overnight strikes on Taganrog port in southwestern Russia, which ships fuel to occupied Crimea.
The attack ignited an inferno at the Kurgannefteprodukt oil depot, sparking an urgent evacuation of residents.
Another oil depot was blitzed in the river port Azov, in the Rostov region.
A secret defence factory that pumps out high-precision military sighting and targeting systems for Russia, the Azov Optical-Mechanical Plant, was also struck.
Drones also targeted the Ilsky Oil Refinery, which normally produces 138,000 barrels of oil a day.
The depot was set ablaze after the attack on the Taganrog port.
Dramatic footage shows shadow fleet tanker Sanar-17 in flames.
The vessel was among the ships that were “completely destroyed” by the strike, with others suffering critical damage.
Dramatic footage also showed Ukrainian drones targeting military trucks filled with Russian occupiers in the Luhansk region.
The carnage caused by Ukrainian drones has caused the Kremlin to import supplies, despite Russia being the world’s second largest oil producer.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mocked the Kremlin, saying: “If [first Russian president Boris] Yeltsin had known that, as a result of the war, Russia would be importing fuel, he would have chosen a different successor [to Putin]. This is a joke.”
© 2026, GDC. © GDC and www.globaldefensecorp.com. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to www.globaldefensecorp.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
