Ukrainian Naval Drones Attack Russian Black Sea Port
- Strike comes as grain shipments from both Russia and Ukraine emerge as a new front in the war
Ukraine struck one of Russia’s largest ports with naval drones, disrupting shipments of grain and oil as fighting in the Black Sea intensified, threatening world food and energy markets.
Friday’s strike came after Russia hit numerous port and grain-terminal targets along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and along the Danube River, degrading Ukraine’s capacity for exporting grain and rattling nerves across the Middle East and Africa, major buyers of the country’s wheat and corn.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it repelled the attack on the port at Novorossiysk, destroying two Ukrainian surface drones. A video published by the Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda and verified by Storyful, owned by The Wall Street Journal’s parent company News Corp., showed the bow of one of the drones plowing into the Ropucha-class landing ship, Olenegorsk Gornyak.
Andrey Kravchenko, mayor of Novorossiysk, said the crews of the landing ship and another vessel, the Suvorovets, reacted quickly to avert any damage.
Ukrainian officials, in keeping with their usual practice, didn’t publicly acknowledge responsibility for the attack and an army spokeswoman suggested it was a Russian provocation. However, one Ukrainian official, speaking privately, confirmed the attack was a Ukrainian operation while Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said “drones are changing the rules of the game” in the Black Sea.
The attack appears to be a Ukrainian attempt to strike at the centers of Russian grain export in the Black Sea. Russia also uses the port for exporting oil from its oil fields and those in Kazakhstan to world markets.
Russian state broadcaster Vesti said traffic has been temporarily stopped at the port, though oil was still being pumped.
The latest attacks cast fresh uncertainty over shipping lanes in the Black Sea, escalating a standoff between Russia and Ukraine since Moscow pulled out of a grain export agreement last month.
Russia has launched waves of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s ports and export infrastructure since exiting the Black Sea Grain Initiative, an agreement brokered by Turkey and the United Nations last year. Ukrainian and Western officials say the attacks are part of a Russian attempt to use food as a weapon in the war while attacking the heart of Ukraine’s economy.
Ukraine uses sea drones, unmanned boats often laden with explosives, to amplify the power of its naval forces in the Black Sea. Ukraine has used the vessels in a series of attacks on key Russian sites and infrastructure. Last month, Ukrainian sea drones disabled the bridge that links Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. A separate attack last year hit the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet, also in Crimea.
The drones have helped Ukraine’s relatively smaller naval forces resist the considerable firepower of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Ukrainian antiship missiles have also pushed Russian warships away from the waters around the key port city of Odesa.
Wheat futures rose as much as 2.8% following the attack, trading around $6.47 a bushel before falling. The jump in prices still fell short of a peak of around $7.60 a bushel reached in July after Russia backed out of the grain deal.
Crude markets took the strike in their stride Friday, with Brent crude futures edging up 0.6% to just over $85 a barrel after it emerged that oil was still flowing.
Still, analysts said any further disruption to the port could send prices for crude and gasoline higher. That could worsen inflation at a time when output cuts by Saudi Arabia and export restrictions by Russia have already tightened global oil supplies and boosted Brent by 12% over the past month. Across two main terminals, Novorossiysk is capable of exporting about 2.5% of the 100 million barrels of oil that the world consumes daily.
The biggest portion of the oil shipped from the port comes from Kazakhstan and is produced by companies including Chevron and Exxon Mobil. About 1.5 million barrels of Kazakh crude depart each day, according to data from S&P Global Commodities at Sea. Most of it leaves from a distinct terminal fed by the CPC pipeline, which is owned by a consortium including the two U.S. oil-and-gas giants and runs from fields near the Caspian Sea to Novorossiysk.
“It’s more of a scare than an impact,” said Viktor Katona, senior crude analyst at ship-tracking firm Kpler, of the Ukrainian strike. “But that scare is quite significant, because if something happens to CPC: Boy, we’re in trouble.”
Most of the Russian crude and products exported from Novorossiysk now travel to Asian refiners, after the European Union and the U.K. banned most petroleum imports from Russia starting last December. The Kazakh crude, though, is a vital source for refiners in Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean.
If it were cut off, those refiners would have to compete for alternative supplies of light, sweet crude—or oil that is low in density and in sulfur content—which could push up prices globally.
Russia’s undoing of the grain deal has imposed a de facto blockade on Ukraine’s largest Black Sea ports, which were responsible for some 95% of Ukraine’s agricultural exports before the war, a key link in the global food supply chain. Ukraine supplied about 9% of the world’s exported wheat and nearly half the world’s sunflower oil before the Russian invasion.
Russia struck a Ukrainian port on the Danube River early on Wednesday, targeting another route that Ukraine uses to export grain, while Moscow and Kyiv have traded threats to attack ships headed to each other’s ports in recent weeks. The Russian Defense Ministry said it averted an attack on ships near the port of Sevastopol in Crimea earlier this week.
By imposing a blockade on Ukraine’s ports and stepping up its own Black Sea exports of grain, oil and other commodities, Russia has effectively seized control of a larger share of the vital trade routes in the waterway. Novorissiysk accounts for 17% of Russia’s maritime trade.
Russia also uses the port for transporting weapons using commercial cargo ships, the Journal previously reported. A U.S.-sanctioned Russian cargo ship, Sparta IV, was pictured in the port carrying artillery weapons in satellite imagery in July.
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Business NewsPoliticsUkrainian Naval Drones Attack Russian Black Sea Port
First Published:4 Aug 2023, 07:16 PM IST
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