Ukraine turning the tide on Russia in Sea of Azov

Certain military campaigns get hugely overblown in their importance (usually famous battles led by famous generals) and others slip by, not getting the coverage they deserve often until long after the war is over.

I wonder if what we are seeing in the Sea of Azov is that. This is an attempt to shut down Russian shipping in this heretofore relatively safe body of water, which has a number of strategic advantages for Ukraine. Moreover, Ukraine is talking about it a great deal, which in itself is worthy of note.

If the Sea of Azov campaign deserves more attention, the Russian bombardment of Ukraine by ballistic missiles is already getting that. This week, the US made it clear that for a while the Ukrainians can count on no US support.

Having made this campaign far more deadly over the past year by starving Ukraine of Patriot interceptors, the US put off any significant aid in this area for a while – though people reported this as a success when nothing could be further from the truth.

Lastly in terms of new stories, Ukraine hit Russia’s largest oil refinery this week – which was important not just because of the size, but because of the location. The Ukrainians seem to be steadily increasing the range of their long-range campaign, a further headache for Russian forces.

What is happening in the Sea of Azov?

The Sea of Azov was supposed to be a Russian lake. The Russians have controlled every inch of the coastline along it since the full-scale invasion in 2022, and access to it is through only one narrow channel called the Strait of Kerch (thus the Kerch Bridge), which runs between Crimea and Russia.

Now it is anything but a Russian lake. Over the last few weeks, in a sign that their campaign to try and isolate Crimea is continuing to ramp up, the Ukrainians have greatly accelerated a campaign to sink or damage Russian-controlled shipping in that body of water.

The strategic importance of the Sea of Azov is not hard to discern by simply looking at a map. With road and rail communications to Crimea down significantly, and the Russians wary about using the Kerch Bridge too much for items such as fuel, trying to get supplies to Crimea by ship becomes the only reasonable alternative. The Ukrainians themselves are stating that at least one part of this campaign is part of the Crimea “switch off” operation to isolate the peninsula.

However, that is not all. Azov is often the first place that stolen grain from Ukraine and Russian grain itself is shipped out into the world market. It is estimated that up to a quarter of all the grain shipments that are controlled by Russia head through the Sea of Azov.

Finally, there are some oil shipments that head through Azov to the world as well. As global sanctions against Russia in this area seem to be doing little to reduce the shipment of Russian oil, Ukraine is using its “kinetic sanctions” to do the job instead. 

For a small body of water, the Sea of Azov is of very high strategic importance for Russia, and keeping it protected should be a very high priority for the Russian military.

However, clearly they are struggling in this area. Over the last week, at first with very little fanfare, the Ukrainians started to methodically gear up a campaign against Russian shipping. Using both air and sea drones, stories started emerging of a series of Ukrainian strikes against Russian-controlled vessels in Azov. Here is a video with footage of some of the attacks.

The UAV (air) attacks seen in that video show that the Ukrainian tactic seems to be to go for the bridge of the vessels – I’m guessing because they do not always want to destroy the vessel outright, but they do want to cripple it so it cannot be controlled. Though this is a guess for now. Sea drones, obviously, would be a different matter.

The ramping up of the attacks is pretty obvious when you look at it in chart form. I put together this chart of the attacks claimed through July 11, when the Ukrainians said that they attacked 28 vessels. 

And this was how the types of vessels attacked were described by Ukrainian official sources:

According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Unmanned Systems Forces Commander Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, the targets included 21 oil tankers, four tugboats, two cargo vessels, and one specialized dredging vessel. Ukrainian officials said the extent of the damage is still being assessed.

So while oil tankers dominate the list, the Ukrainians are clearly trying to shut down a range of vessels in a clear statement to the Russians that the Sea of Azov is not to be considered a safe place for any shipping.

That message seems to be getting through, as it is now claimed that the Russians on July 10 forbade any new traffic to move through the Kerch Strait between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

There is no indication when the Russians plan to relax that restriction—and if the attacks stay at the present level (or the capability remains and the Russians do not develop the ability to protect shipping) then it can be assumed that the body of water will remain functionally closed. 

So, using air and sea drones, the Ukrainians have turned the Sea of Azov into a Ukrainian lake. Think about that for a minute.

As of now, the Russians do not seem to have a working counter to this campaign – so the question, as posed in the previous weekend’s update, is whether they can do something to change the dynamic of this operation.

If not, this one campaign will further strangle Russian supplies from getting to Crimea and do real damage to Russian grain and fuel shipments just when the Russian economy is crying out for more funds.

In other words, it is a strategically impactful campaign being waged effectively at the right time. It deserves far more coverage than it is getting.

Trump gifts Putin time

You would be forgiven for believing that Donald Trump had some Damascene conversion last week and switched sides from backing Russia to backing Ukraine. There was enough reporting on this that it almost seemed believable.

The key reason, as I mentioned in a piece yesterday, was Trump’s verbal statement (not followed up yet, it must be said) to provide Ukraine with some kind of license to make some part of a Patriot anti-air system. This announcement was far less clear the more you look into it.

The more you try to find details on this, the murkier it becomes. 

What has happened, of course, is that Trump is trying to verbally associate himself with the Ukrainian cause as it becomes clearer to even him that the Ukrainians are doing much, much better in the war than he had ever imagined possible. Here was how one Wall Street Journal story summarized what Trump is hearing:

Of course, what Trump has actually done is make no promises about anything concrete and if you read his words, he seems to be implying that Ukraine might eventually get this license instead of getting any new supplies made in the US. Here was how he said it:

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving ‘em enough.… We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it.”

In other words, “stop complaining that we are not shipping you more Patriot interceptors as the Russians bombard your cities and economy with ballistic missiles. We will give you the ability to make your own.”

The only problem with this is that it will most likely take years until Ukraine can actually make Patriot interceptors, if they eventually do get the license. The most optimistic forecast I received from a Ukrainian source is that they believe that they could do it in a year, but most believe that is very optimistic. 

The only problem with waiting for years is that bombarding Ukraine with ballistic missiles is a key and growing Russian priority now. The Russians have put far more effort into building these systems just as the US has been slow-walking new Patriots to Ukraine. The scale of the ballistic missile assault facing Ukraine is sobering. 

Here is a quick summary of what we are seeing:

• Scale of the escalation. Russia’s monthly ballistic missile launches have roughly tripled year-over-year — 28 missiles in a comparable month a year ago versus around 70+ now. January 2026 already set a record of 91 ballistic missiles in a single month, and Russia has sustained a high tempo since. These attacks are certainly set to increase significantly next winter when they can do the most damage.
• Interception rates are falling behind. The problem of the deprivation of Patriots in a nutshell. Ukraine intercepted about 89% of all aerial threats in June overall (drones, cruise missiles), but only 40% of ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles interceptions seem to require Patriot interceptors—and the Ukrainians had to admit on July 6 that they had none or almost none, left.
• Notable Recent Russian Ballistic Missile Attacks: June 2: 33 Iskander-M ballistic missiles fired alongside cruise missiles and 650+ drones; only 11 of 41 ballistic missiles (27%) were shot down. June 15: 34 Iskander-M ballistic missiles in a combined strike; roughly half intercepted. Killed 5, injured 35 in Kyiv. July 6: 29 ballistic missiles fired at Kyiv, and Ukraine’s air force said all 29 struck their targets — part of a barrage that killed at least 19-27 people. July 8: The third ballistic missile strike on Kyiv in six days, killing 4. Recent weekend strikes used Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles from the Bryansk area alongside cruise missiles and drones.
• Cumulative toll: at least 60 deaths in Kyiv and its region since the start of July alone.

The fact that Russia seems to be upping its strike rate with three attacks on Kyiv in six days, just as it is clear that Ukraine is running out of Patriots interceptors, shows how the Russians are aware of the help Trump has and will continue to provide for them.

For at least a year, if not longer, they can do a great deal of damage with their ballistic missiles knowing that the Ukrainians have few options to shoot them down. That is a massive strategic gift that the USA has given to Russia.

Trump has provided Putin at least one more whole winter, and possibly two or three (the Japanese after many years of licensing are only making 30 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors, the ones Ukraine needs, annually), to attack what he wants.

And still people talk about Trump actually wanting to help Ukraine. He does not. He just wants to be seen to be supportive of Ukraine because Ukraine is doing better and his beloved Putin is struggling.

But he remains what he has always been, and he has even be able to provide Putin with a massive gift of time while the world applauded thinking he was helping Ukraine.

We really are lost.

Ukraine strikes deep

The largest Russian oil refinery is a long way from Ukraine — and its distance has provided it with some protection (until this week). This refinery is located in Omsk, over 2,500 kilometers from Ukraine. Here is a useful map put together by the Institute for the Study of War, which shows just how far away it is.

On Monday, July 6, distance no longer protected Omsk. The Ukrainians were able to launch a long-range drone attack on the facility and hit some very important parts of the refinery. Here was how Reuters reported it:

July 7 (Reuters) – Omsk oil refinery, Russia’s largest, ⁠has ⁠halted operations following a Ukrainian ⁠drone attack, two industry sources said on Tuesday.

Monday’s strike on ​the refinery, deep in Siberia, was one of Ukraine’s longest-range attacks of the conflict, now ‌well into its fifth year.

The ‌halt in operations at the plant, which is Russia’s top producer of ⁠petrol, is ⁠likely to exacerbate fuel shortages across the country.

The visual evidence of the attack showed some pretty extensive fires.

Why the refinery was put out of action is that it seems that even over this great distance, the Ukrainians were able to hit, according to their military, the crucial distillation units that break crude oil down into its different distillates.

According to the Ukrainians, their drones hit the ELOU-AVT-11 primary crude oil processing unit at Omsk, which has a design capacity to break down up to 8.4 million tonnes of crude oil per year.

Readers of my Substack would have been well aware of the importance of attacking these distillation tanks almost a year ago, as there was this detailed piece on the subject. It is amazing to see how long it takes the media to understand what is important—they are only getting this now.

The dust needs to settle on this attack to see just how damaging it will be. Perhaps the Russians can get Omsk back to production (at least partially) quickly. You would think it would be a massive Russian priority considering their growing fuel crisis.

So this one attack will not end the war. It will, however, terrify Russian air defense forces. If the Ukrainians can reach out and hit Omsk (Ukrainian claims are that the drones used flew up to 3,000 kilometers to reach their target), there will not be a safe Russian asset within 2,000 miles of Ukraine.

That is a lot of Russia and a lot of strategic targets to defend.

Phillips P. O’Brien is professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew. This article was originally published here, on his Substack, Phillips’s Newsletter. It is republished with kind permission.