Ukrainian drone attacks overnight on 8–9 July set fire to oil storage facilities in Russia’s Tver and Stavropol regions and struck two tankers in the Taganrog Bay of the Azov Sea, according to statements by Russian regional governors and the defence ministry. The governor of Tver region said a reservoir at the Tver oil depot, a subsidiary of Surgutneftegas, caught fire but was contained without injuries. In Stavropol region, the governor reported a blaze at an industrial site in the hamlet of Vyazniki that spread to fuel tanks, prompting the evacuation of nearby residents. In the Azov Sea, the governor of Rostov region said two tankers suffered mechanical damage and fires; crews were evacuated and no one was hurt. The Russian defence ministry stated that air defences intercepted and destroyed 73 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones over 12 regions, including Crimea and the Azov Sea.

Russian official accounts emphasised the absence of casualties and the containment of fires. The Tver governor noted that the oil depot had been fitted with anti-drone nets before the strike. The Rostov governor said the tankers were empty and that one fire had been extinguished. The ministry of defence provided a tally of downed drones across Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Kaluga, Novgorod, Tver, Oryol, Leningrad, Rostov, the Moscow region, Krasnodar, and Crimea. Separately, Russian military press centres reported destroying 139 Ukrainian drone control points, field ammunition depots, and Starlink terminals along the front line over the same 24-hour period, framing the overnight strikes as part of a broader air war.

Ukraine’s commander of unmanned systems forces, Robert Brovdi (call sign “Magyar”), claimed a far larger operation, stating that his units had attacked and set ablaze more than 20 Russian vessels in the Azov Sea over the preceding three days, most of them fuel tankers. He identified eight tankers by name, along with a dry cargo ship and the ferry SKS One in the port of Kerch, and later added nine more tankers. Brovdi asserted that the vessels were part of a “shadow fleet” delivering fuel to annexed Crimea from the Taganrog area, each carrying about 7,000 tonnes of petroleum products. Ukrainian monitoring channels circulated video footage of drone strikes on ships at night, showing repeated hits and large fires. Viewed from Kyiv, the campaign aims to sever maritime logistics supplying Russian forces on the peninsula and to degrade the economic infrastructure sustaining the war effort.

The strikes continue a months-long Ukrainian campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, which has already hit all major refineries and, according to Russian media reports, aggravated a domestic fuel crisis. The Azov Sea has become an active front in the drone war: the same tankers were attacked on 8 July, and the port of Taganrog has been struck repeatedly over the past year. Russian authorities have imposed local emergency regimes and restrictions on petrol sales in many regions. The dossier remains open, with both sides signalling no let-up in long-range drone operations and no diplomatic track to halt the attacks on energy logistics.