Over the past week, Ukraine struck a total of 116 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov. Most were smaller tankers used to transport oil and grain from ports along the Russian coast to larger ships in the Black Sea. The result of these attacks was a bunch of floating hulks and Russia closing the Kerch Strait.
Starting last night, Ukraine moved on to a new phase of this operation. It is now targeting larger Russian tankers and support vessels in the Black Sea.
Magyar’s poetry update: the Black Sea chapter of Operation MoLoChKa has begun.
— 414 Magyar's Birds (@414magyarbirds) July 15, 2026
⚓️🔥Black Sea 20:0. The next cluster of Operation “MoLoChKa” by the Unmanned Systems Forces has been uncorked on Ukrainian Statehood Day – the Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces in the Black Sea.…
116 vessels of russia’s shadow fleet in the Sea of Azov – the first round of the naval battle is over. Now it is the Black Sea. 20:0 today: 17 oil tankers, 2 LNG tankers and 1 tugboat hunted. The official report, together with video proof, will follow later.
And the video was posted a short time later: The first strike appears to be on an LNG tanker which creates a spectacular fireball.
⚓️ Magyar’s Admiral Update
— 414 Magyar's Birds (@414magyarbirds) July 15, 2026
Black Sea: Unpacking 2.0
🔥⚓️Operation “MoLoChKa” by the Unmanned Systems Forces
The first 20 tankers in the Black Sea were hunted during the very first night.
The overall naval battle score during the operation from 6 to 15 July reached 136 units of… pic.twitter.com/LqmM06KdlO
This path from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea accounts for about 20% of Russia's oil exports by sea and 90% of its grain exports.
⚓️🔥 Russia’s Black Sea shipping is now in the strike zone.
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 15, 2026
In the first half of 2026, the Azov-Black Sea basin handled 132 million tonnes, around 37% of Russia’s seaborne export scale for the period.
Black Sea and Azov terminals moved 56.5 million tonnes in the 2023/24 season,… https://t.co/YuXWOtycdC pic.twitter.com/UKvEbKcTJY
Black Sea and Azov terminals moved 56.5 million tonnes in the 2023/24 season, or 90.5% of Russia’s seaborne grain exports. The same routes are used to move stolen Ukrainian grain.
For crude oil, Russia exported 52.4 million tonnes through the Black Sea in 2025, around 19% of its seaborne crude exports.
This is also about Crimea. Kerch, Sevastopol and Feodosia are part of the maritime supply network Russia can use to move fuel, cargo and stolen Ukrainian grain in and out of the occupied peninsula.
Around Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Taman, Port Kavkaz, Kerch and Crimea’s Black Sea ports sit hundreds of tankers, gas carriers, dry cargo ships, tugs and support vessels that keep this system moving.
After what happened to Russia’s shipping in the Sea of Azov, it is not hard to imagine what Russian vessels in the Black Sea may face, if the operation continues with the same intensity.
All of that infrastructure is now being targeted. Russia has responded with its own strikes targeting Ukraine's grain exports.
Ukraine has lost about a third of its capacity to export grain via its vital Black Sea ports due to intensifying Russian missile and drone attacks, the country's main farmers' union said.
More than four years into its war with Russia, agricultural exports like grains and vegetable oils remain Ukraine's biggest source of foreign currency earnings, with more than 90% shipped through three ports in the southern Odesa region...
"Russia has begun systematically striking port infrastructure, terminals and the entire transport logistics chain, using ballistic missiles again and again," the trading department of Ukrainian farmers' union UAC said in a weekly report released late on Tuesday.
Damaging Ukrainian grain exports hurts Ukraine but doesn't protect Russia's shadow fleet. What is the plan to do that? Where is the Russian Navy?
🇺🇦🇷🇺 RUSSIAN PRO-WAR COMEDIAN PANICS OVER THE SHADOW FLEET
— WW3finalboss (@WW3finalboss) July 15, 2026
One of Russia's 🇷🇺 most prominent Z-aligned stand-up comedians is openly lamenting as Ukrainian forces 🇺🇦 strike Russia's shadow fleet.
“Why can't we answer with anything?” - Russian pro-war comedian 🇷🇺
The frustration… pic.twitter.com/XyDWIxhA9u
Meanwhile, Russia is facing another problem with its shadow fleet tankers. It has loaded tons of oil onto ships but those ships are not being unloaded very quickly.
⚡ 🇷🇺 #RussianCrude is piling up at sea. Five tankers sit anchored off Mersa El-Hamra in Egypt & five more are stalled in the Riau archipelago near Singapore. Total floating storage has hit❗135M barrels - back to early 2026 highs. Ukrainian drone strikes have hammered Russian… pic.twitter.com/kKUpbGexdt
— Kyrylo Shevchenko (@KShevchenkoReal) July 15, 2026
Five tankers sit anchored off Mersa El-Hamra in Egypt & five more are stalled in the Riau archipelago near Singapore. Total floating storage has hit❗135M barrels - back to early 2026 highs. Ukrainian drone strikes have hammered Russian refineries, pushing throughput to a 21-year low in July. Oil once refined at home is now forced into export at 4.2M bpd. But India & China are slow to lift cargoes, leaving tankers idling for weeks. The backlog is costing Russia $200M per week in lost revenue while floating storage costs keep rising.
Obviously, every tanker that sits idle, full of oil is not earning Russia money at a time when Russia desperately needs money. At the same time, the gasoline rationing continues to bring the war home to Russia.
Russian Novosibirsk. The line to buy fuel is huge.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 14, 2026
The person filming says he's driving about 60 km/hour, so you can imagine how long the line is.
There are reports that fuel is only available at some gas stations in the city. pic.twitter.com/Gt62t74gIu
Lines are literally so long that this person was caught using binoculars to try to see the end of it.
In Kazan, the line for gas was so long that a Russian man was using binoculars just to spot the end of it. pic.twitter.com/5TpMr2BU9X
— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) July 15, 2026
But it's not just cars that need fuel. All the trucks and machinery needed for modern farming burns a lot of diesel and right now there's a shortage. It's going to be hard to harvest crops without fuel.
🍞 Russians could be left without bread this year — and Putin is, of course, the one to thank
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) July 15, 2026
“There’s no diesel fuel. But there’s always money for bombs. How does that make any sense?” the man in the video asks.
He says that if things get any worse, farmers will soon have to… pic.twitter.com/EP9ZIDL94a
It's only Wednesday and the attacks on ships in the Black Sea just started last night. Let's see how things look in a few more days. If Russia can't stop these attacks, it's going to have a major problem earning money to keep the war going.
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