Attacks By Ukrainian Drones Have Disrupted The Flow Of Goods To Russia Via Black Sea Ports
- 3.08.2026, 20:51
The situation has become extremely tense.
Attacks by Ukrainian drones have hampered imports from China via the Black Sea, according to employees of logistics and foreign trade companies. “The situation on the China-Novorossiysk route is very difficult right now, with massive delays,” says one of the importers. Freight forwarders are advising against using this route at the moment: due to attacks by drones and unmanned boats, the situation there is unpredictable, according to three of his colleagues, as reported by The Moscow Times.
According to them, tensions in the region have been high since March, but the situation has now reached a critical point. Previously, attacks were mainly directed at dry cargo ships carrying grain and tankers carrying petroleum products. In late July, a container ship carrying imported cargo was struck. On the night of August 1, the Fesco-owned motor vessel “Yanina” sank in the Black Sea, 130 miles from Novorossiysk, due to an attack by maritime drones; the crew was rescued, but the entire cargo was lost.
Novorossiysk is primarily an export port; as recently as this spring, it was vying for the status of Russia’s main export gateway, while also handling a significant share of imports. Far Eastern ports are overloaded, forcing goods from China to be transported via such a long route. Up to 30% of containerized imports into Russia passed through Novorossiysk, according to the head of a major logistics company.
Ship schedule tracking shows that the number of voyages by large vessels from Novorossiysk in July fell by 38% year-over-year, including a 50% drop for tankers and a 46% drop for grain bulkers. Other cargo ships reduced their port calls by 23%. “But now the situation will worsen, because container ships have also become a target,” fears a top manager at a major logistics company.
“There will clearly be fewer who are willing to take such a reckless risk, even though there were no significant delays at the port until June, and logistics were stable—unlike in the Far East, which is overloaded,” — says the owner of a freight forwarding company.
The scale of the problems with shipping cargo out of Novorossiysk this year speaks to the magnitude of the risk. According to estimates by the Union of Grain Exporters and Producers, due to attacks in the Azov-Black Sea region, Russia may fall short of exporting up to 30–35 million metric tons of wheat this season — even though analysts had forecast total exports at 44–45 million metric tons. Total grain imports from Russia last season (July 2025–June 2026) exceeded 61 million metric tons. “The systematic attacks that began in July could soon lead to a complete blockade of the Black Sea basin’s export corridors,” the union said in a statement.
In 2025, Novorossiysk handled 168 million metric tons of cargo—29% more than its closest competitor, Ust-Luga in the Leningrad Region (130 million metric tons), and twice as much as the Pacific port of Vostochny,” noted Diana Shevtsova, director of the Novorossiysk branch of TransGID. One in every five metric tons of Russian maritime exports passed through Novorossiysk—including Urals crude oil and the Kazakh CPC Blend, wheat for Egyptian grain elevators, and containers of fertilizers and metals bound for markets in Asia and Africa. A terminal worth 120.7 billion rubles is currently under construction at the port, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium plans to handle a record 72 million metric tons of oil through the local berthing complex, and container throughput has exceeded 1.1 million TEU for the first time. “Three factors are behind these figures: the reorientation of Russian exports from the Baltic Sea to southern routes, a shift toward Asian markets, and large-scale investments in infrastructure,” Shevtsova wrote.