Ukraine Intensifies Drone Attacks on Russian Fuel Supply Lines Near Crimea

Kyiv. Ukraine has further intensified its efforts to weaken Russia's fuel supply system by intensifying attacks on sea routes near Crimea, occupied by Russia. According to Ukraine's drone force commander Robert Brovdi ‘Majar’, at least 25 ships have been attacked by drones in the Sea of Azov region in the last four days. As a result, those ships have caught fire. The Ukrainian army claims that a total of 36 ships have been attacked. It is claimed that most of these are commercial oil tankers of Russia's proxy-named ship network. Ukraine has stated that it is advancing its strategy to block supply routes to and from occupied Crimea under a self-declared logistics lockdown campaign. This campaign aims to affect fuel transportation in particular. The presence of oil tankers is considered normal in the Sea of Azov, especially near the northeastern coast of occupied Crimea, because the Kerch port of Crimea has facilities for loading oil by land. Last month, Ukraine also attacked the Kerch port. After that, analysis of satellite images showed a significant decrease in the number of oil tankers in the area. Details of the attacks from July 6 to 9 have been released by Robert Brovdi. Nighttime videos of those attacks started appearing on social media from Tuesday morning. Russia's Rostov region governor Yuri Slyusar confirmed on Wednesday that two empty oil tankers were attacked by drones in Taganrog Bay. According to him, those ships were still burning as of Thursday. According to Brovdi, each of the two previously attacked tankers contained about 7,000 tons of fuel, which was being transported from the Taganrog region to Crimea. A satellite image taken on Wednesday shows a large plume of smoke rising from a ship about 4.2 kilometers off the coast of Crimea.