The Sea of ​​Azov has become a battlefield

Ukraine said it had hit more than 110 Russian vessels in the Sea of ​​Azov in nine days, making the operation one of the most intense series of attacks on ships ever recorded, the Financial Times reports.

The recent campaign against Russian vessels, which began in full force on July 6, aims to disrupt fuel supply chains and logistics that support Russian military operations in occupied southern Ukraine, as well as in Crimea.

The number of ships hit during that period even exceeded the scale of attacks during the Iran-Iraq “tanker war” of the 1980s, Thomas Alex, a senior analyst at maritime security agency Ambrey, told the FT. That conflict saw more than 450 attacks over seven years.

"I can't emphasize enough how unprecedented this is," said Aleksa. "We've never seen something this concentrated on a global scale."

Ukrainian drones hit 11 Russian vessels in the Sea of ​​Azov overnight Monday to Tuesday alone, the commander of Ukraine's drone control forces said.

Robert Brovdy said in a Telegram post that the targets included five tankers, five bulk carriers and one tugboat, bringing the total number of vessels hit in the past nine days to 116.

The report did not mention attacks on grain ships. Industry sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said several grain ships were hit on July 13 and 14 and caught fire.

"They are standing there like targets in front of a firing squad. In a few days, there will not be a single undamaged ship left in the Sea of ​​Azov," one of the sources told Reuters.

Navigation in the Sea of ​​Azov was restricted yesterday, Reuters sources said. The sea, located at the mouth of the Don River, which flows through Russia's main southern grain-producing region, is mostly used by smaller coastal ships.

A source told Reuters on Monday that merchant ships were unable to enter or leave the Sea of ​​Azov through the Kerch Strait or the Azov-Don Canal, which connects the sea with the Don River.

The scale of the attack prompted Russia's Agriculture Ministry to announce on Tuesday that grain exports would be redirected from the Sea of ​​Azov, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of "terrorism."

"What the Ukrainian regime is doing is not even piracy," Lavrov said. "Pirates, at least, steal and take something for themselves. And here they take nothing for themselves or anyone else. They just cause harm and spread fear. This is terrorism, clear and unambiguous."

A Ukrainian military source told Reuters that "Ukrainian armed forces are targeting exclusively military targets or targets that contribute to strengthening Russia's combat capabilities."

"Civilian cargo is not among them. By talking about attacks on civilian vessels, Russia is looking for an excuse to justify its cynical attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure."

Attacks on merchant ships have been common during the war in Ukraine. Kiev has mainly used unmanned surface vessels against ships under US, EU or UK sanctions, or drones to try to disrupt the loading of cargo onto Russian ships not under sanctions.

This time, by targeting fuel tankers and other support vessels operating in those waters, Ukraine is seeking to make it harder to transport fuel, ammunition and other supplies, increase the cost of the war for the Kremlin and make it harder for Russian forces to maintain their presence along the 1.200-kilometer front.

The Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization, Arsenio Dominguez, condemned the attacks in the Sea of ​​Azov on Monday, stating that "such actions endanger seafarers, endanger the safety of navigation, disrupt global supply chains and undermine the principles on which international maritime traffic is based."