The tankers were built to be invisible. But this week, Ukraine made them the most visible things at sea.
Ukrainian drones struck roughly 90 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov over seven days, part of an intensifying campaign to sever the fuel lifeline to Russian-occupied Crimea. Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, said his crews hit a Russian ship on average every 112 minutes during the week.
The targets are what analysts call Russia's "shadow fleet" — aging tankers that move oil under flags of convenience, transponders switched off and ownership buried behind shell companies, to slip past Western sanctions and a G7 price cap. Most are small, with a weight of about 7,000 tons.
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The logic of the campaign is economic. Oil export revenue funds roughly a quarter of Moscow's budget, and the strikes aim at the money more than the military.
Russia condemns the strikes as terrorism, noting the tankers are civilian. Kyiv counters that a ship carrying fuel for the war is a legitimate military target.
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