Ukraine Strikes 13 Russian Shadow Fleet Ships in Two Days

For Serbia, which still receives fuel and part of its energy indirectly through Black Sea and Danube corridors, every fresh strike on shipping and oil logistics in southern Russia is not a distant war story but a factor that spills over into prices and transport insurance across the region. Ukraine’s military said that on July 21 and 22 it hit thirteen vessels of the so called Russian shadow fleet, the network of ships Moscow uses to move oil around Western sanctions, opening a new maritime phase of a war that until now was fought far from the eastern trenches.

According to Kyiv, the struck vessels included ten dry cargo ships, two tugboats and a tanker, and the attacks were carried out on the Azov and Black seas. Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces, released footage of drone strikes on the ships, and the Ukrainian side claims that since the start of this campaign more than a hundred vessels have been hit in the Azov Sea and around seventy in the Black Sea. The sanctions regime the West has built for years rests on leaving Russian oil without buyers and without carriers, and Kyiv is now extending that logic to the sea itself.

What is the shadow fleet, and why is Kyiv hitting it?

The shadow fleet is the name for hundreds of aging tankers of murky ownership and insurance that Russia uses to sell oil above the Western price cap. Ukraine argues that these vessels, because they serve to bypass sanctions and finance the war, no longer have to be treated as ordinary civilian shipping under international law. It is a legally sensitive claim, because it shifts the line of what counts as a legitimate target in a war at sea, and that is precisely why every new round of strikes draws attention from offices in Brussels and Washington, which want to keep up sanctions pressure but without an escalation that would threaten freedom of navigation.

Alongside the maritime strikes, a series of drone attacks was reported on land against logistics hubs. Warehouses of Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, burned in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk, and local authorities say several people were injured in the two cities. It is the fourth reported strike on the retailer’s facilities in a short span, a signal from Kyiv that the target is not only military but also the economic backbone of the war.

How much have these strikes really changed the balance?

Russia and Ukraine continue to accuse each other of attacks on ships, ports, warehouses and military sites, so independently verifying each individual hit on the ground is difficult. Blackouts were also reported across occupied Crimea, where Ukraine says electrical substations were struck in several places, along with fires in cities in southern Russia. What can be seen with certainty is a change of pattern: instead of only the front line, the weight is shifting to the rear, to tankers, transformers and depots.

For a European perspective, Serbia’s included, the key question is not only the military tally but the price. If strikes on the shadow fleet and oil logistics become routine, risk and transport insurance rise, and sooner or later that is felt at the pump and in household budgets. The open question is whether Moscow will answer the maritime campaign with a new wave of strikes on Ukrainian ports and infrastructure, or try to protect the shadow fleet with other routes. What do you think, can Ukraine really cut Russia’s oil revenue by pressing the war out to sea?