There Are A Few Hundred Russian Tankers On The Black Sea. In Five Days, Ukraine Droned More Than 70 Of Them.
Ukraine's counterlogistics campaign goes to sea.
Hundreds of Russian tankers ply the Sea of Azov and the adjacent Black Sea, hauling fuel between Russian ports and Russian-occupied ports in southern Ukraine and Crimea.
On July 7, Ukraine’s drone force finally started hunting the tankers. By day five of the counter-tanker effort, the Ukrainians had hit and damaged no fewer than 76 ships including tankers and even tugboats sent to assist damaged tankers.
“To be clear, 76 tankers comprise a massive fraction of Russia’s shadow fleet” of unregistered ships, RAND analyst Michael Bohnert explained. “At this rate, in two weeks, there will be next to no Russian tankers in the Black Sea.”
The attacks on tankers are part of a wider effort by Ukrainian deep strike forces to starve Russian forces in occupied Ukraine, and especially in Crimea, by striking their supply lines at a depth of a hundred miles or farther.
