"Unprecedented": Ukrainian Armed Forces Strikes Mark The Largest Naval Battle In Nearly Half A Century
- 15.07.2026, 11:54
We have never seen such concentrated attacks anywhere in the world.
The scale of the attacks on Russian ships in the Sea of Azov, and now in the Black Sea, are reminiscent of the “tanker war” between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, when the two oil-producing countries tried to deprive each other of their livelihoods.
Over the nine days ending Tuesday, Ukrainian drones attacked 116 Russian ships. As reported by Financial Times, Thomas Alexa, a senior analyst at the maritime security agency Ambrey , the pace of attacks exceeded that of the Iran-Iraq War, when more than 450 attacks were recorded over seven years.
“I can’t find the words to express just how unprecedented this is,” he commented. “We’ve never seen such concentrated strikes anywhere in the world.”
Ukrainian drones mainly target wheelhouses or pipelines through which liquid cargo is pumped into onboard tanks. As a result, the ships do not sink (tankers, for example, are designed from the outset to remain afloat even with significant damage), but they lose their ability to move. Restoring the control systems can take a long time, and damaged vessels must be sent to dry docks for repairs—and, by all accounts, not in the Sea of Azov, since it has effectively come under the control of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF).
According to Alexa, these are highly precise strikes, and this is potentially an extremely deadly campaign.
As the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated on Monday, the tankers destroyed in the Sea of Azov were transporting oil and petroleum products from Russia in circumvention of international sanctions, while the ferries were providing military logistics and transporting cargo for the Russian armed forces. According to the General Staff, dry cargo ships and tugs were delivering military cargo, equipment, and supplies, participating in the Russian army’s maritime logistics.
SBS Commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi reported that forces are intensively destroying the Russian shadow fleet in the Sea of Azov, cutting off supply routes to Crimea and to the military groupings in the occupied regions of Ukraine. According to him, the peninsula’s transshipment infrastructure is being struck every night, traffic through the Kerch Strait has been halted, and unloading has been reduced to a minimum.
The Iran-Iraq War, which began after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, lasted from 1980 to 1988. The sides began attacking each other’s oil tankers as early as 1981, but the main phase of the “tanker war” took place between 1984 and 1988: Iraq carried out strikes using French aircraft, while Iran responded with attacks using aircraft, ships, and sea mines—including against vessels from Gulf countries that supported Iraq.
On Wednesday, Brovdi announced that the SBS had launched a systematic campaign of strikes against transport vessels in the Black Sea. According to him, on the night of July 15, drones attacked 20 vessels there, including 17 oil tankers, two gas carriers, and one tugboat.