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Ukraine Damages Product Tanker and Oil Terminal on Sea of Azov

A Ukrainian drone closes in on a product tanker at Taganrog (USF)
A Ukrainian drone closes in on a product tanker at Taganrog (USF)

Published May 31, 2026 8:25 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

On Friday night, Ukraine's drone forces launched another large-scale attack on targets in Russian-occupied Crimea, damaging a tanker and two petroleum terminals. 

Unmanned Systems Force (USF) Commander Robert "Madyar" Brovdi reported that airborne drones from his division hit 23 different targets around the region. In Taganrog, a small port at the northeastern end of the Sea of Azov, a drone struck and damaged a product tanker, causing a substantial fire on board. At about the same time, USF drones hit a petroleum product depot (the Kurgannefteprodukt site) in Taganrog, along with a large fuel tank farm inside of the seaport complex. 

Separately, at the small port of Feodosia in southeast Crimea, Ukrainian drones hit and damaged a terminal used for Russian military fuel transfers. Video footage released by Madyar shows multiple successive strikes, with little sign of resistance from Russian air defenses, which have been thinned out over the course of the past year. 

All of these fuel-infrastructure strikes can be viewed within the context of a broader Ukrainian "middle strike" effort to dismantle Russian military logistics on the corridor between Crimea and mainland Russia. Ukraine's new midsize drones are within reach of the M14 highway from the Russian border to Melitopol, and they have been pounding Russian fuel and ammunition trucks day and night. The strikes do not discriminate between civilian and military fuel shipments, and gasoline shortages and rationing measures have been reported at civilian gas stations across Crimea.