COLUMN: The Strikes on Moscow and the Black Sea

Details of a Coordinated Maritime Strike

On the night of July 20, according to the Kyiv Independent, Ukrainian drones struck six ships in the Black Sea: two oil tankers belonging to the Russian “ghost fleet”—that network of aging vessels, often registered under flags of convenience, which allows Moscow to circumvent Western oil sanctions—and four dry cargo ships. This strike is part of a broader campaign carried out under the names “Operation MoLoCHKa” and “Crimean Switch Off,” according to remarks attributed to the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert “Madyar” Brovdi. There is something almost bureaucratic about these code names, as if the war had eventually developed its own bureaucracy of targeted destruction.

That same night, seven additional ships from the “ghost fleet” and seven energy facilities in occupied Crimea were reportedly targeted, according to the same source. Three oil tankers and four dry cargo ships were reportedly hit in the combined Black Sea and Sea of Azov area. These figures, coming from a single Ukrainian military source, should be treated as documented allegations rather than independently corroborated facts.

A cumulative total that illustrates the scale of the campaign

According to Al Jazeera, Commander Brovdi cited, as of July 20, a cumulative total of 183 ships targeted since the beginning of July. Taken in isolation, this figure might seem abstract; but when viewed alongside reports from previous weeks, it paints a clear picture. According to the BBC, between July 6 and 9, at least 25 to 36 ships had already been struck in the Sea of Azov, with specific names cited—the Sanar, the Alexey Rasov, and the Penelopa.

An attack on July 15 also targeted twenty ships in a single night in the Black Sea—seventeen oil tankers, two gas carriers, and one tugboat—bringing the ten-day total to 136 ships, according to Euromaidan Press. This accumulation of figures, week after week, constitutes less a series of isolated incidents than a deliberate policy of naval harassment, acknowledged as such by the Ukrainian military officials cited.

A Russian strike that didn’t wait for nightfall

It would be misleading to recount this sequence of events solely from the perspective of Ukrainian strikes. On the same day, July 20, according to Al Jazeera, a Russian attack on a ship near Odesa left at least ten people dead. This death toll, documented separately from the events in Moscow and the Black Sea, serves as a reminder that this war continues to take its toll primarily in Ukrainian lives, even when media attention focuses on Kyiv’s tactical successes. We should never recount a night of successful Ukrainian strikes without also noting, in the same breath, the cost of that night on the other side of the country.

According to a summary published by a newsletter citing Ukrinform, a separate Russian strike on Odesa on July 20 left at least three people dead and three wounded in the afternoon. These two events—distinct in both timing and nature—paint a picture of a single day of war as seen from Ukraine: offense far away, defense at home.

What This Asymmetry Reveals

The comparison between the documented casualties on the Ukrainian side in Odesa and the reported injuries on the Russian side in Podolsk is not a mathematical equation to be solved, but it illustrates a persistent asymmetry in this war: Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities target, in a significant proportion of documented cases, residential or port areas, while Ukrainian strikes, according to the sources consulted, primarily target military energy and logistics infrastructure. I make this distinction with the caution required when assessing a war in real time, without claiming that it fully captures the complexity of the subject.

A shortage that has been worsening for months

What gives the strike on the oil depot in the Moscow Oblast its strategic significance is the context in which it took place. According to the BBC, even before the night of July 20, more than 90% of Russian regions were experiencing fuel rationing or shortages, to the point that diesel exports were banned by Russian authorities. The Moscow refinery, damaged in a previous strike, is reportedly unable to resume operations before the end of the year, according to a Reuters report cited by the Kyiv Independent. An army running low on diesel doesn’t stop moving overnight; it moves more slowly, it moves less often, and that is exactly the kind of effect a sustained campaign of strikes seeks to produce.

The strike on the Omsk refinery, nearly 2,500 kilometers from Ukrainian territory, documented in early July by CNBC, had already prompted Zelensky to make the now-famous remark: Siberia is now “within range.” The depot targeted on July 20 in the Moscow Oblast follows the same logic, this time applied just a few dozen kilometers from the Russian capital.

Kyiv Claims a Legitimate Target

According to the Kyiv Independent, Ukrainian authorities consider Russian oil facilities to be legitimate military targets, insofar as they directly finance and fuel the Kremlin’s war effort. I am reporting this justification as Kyiv’s stated position, without presenting it as an indisputable international legal truth—the law of armed conflict regarding the targeting of dual-use energy infrastructure remains a matter of interpretation, not a given.

How This System Emerged

The “ghost fleet” refers to a group of aging oil tankers—often purchased secondhand—registered under lenient flags and used to transport Russian oil despite Western sanctions imposed after the 2022 invasion. This system, documented in several analyses cited by the BBC and Al Jazeera, allows Moscow to maintain a flow of oil revenues by circumventing the price cap mechanisms put in place by the Western coalition.

Ukrainian strikes against these ships, such as those on July 20 in the Black Sea, therefore target an economic as well as a military link in Russia’s war effort. Striking an oil tanker from the “ghost fleet” means targeting a vessel that is often nothing new except for the cargo it carries—and it is precisely this cargo that indirectly finances every assault on the eastern front.

The Scale of the Problem for the West

Available analyses, particularly those reported by the BBC regarding the July strikes, estimate that the “ghost fleet” comprises several hundred active vessels, a figure that varies depending on the counting methodologies used by different Western monitoring groups. This methodological uncertainty does not invalidate the fundamental observation: four years after the invasion, the circumvention of oil sanctions remains an unresolved problem for the Western coalition, which lends even greater strategic weight to direct strikes against these ships.

Never-ending pressure from the ground

It would be incomplete to recount the night of July 20 without mentioning that, while drones were striking Moscow and the Black Sea, the ground war continued elsewhere. According to the Kyiv Independent, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Russian forces had concentrated up to 145 soldiers in the town of Kostiantynivka that same day, where Ukrainian units were conducting defensive and anti-sabotage operations. There is a certain narrative injustice in the fact that distant strikes on Moscow make the headlines while a town like Kostiantynivka defends itself, meter by meter, in relative silence.

The Ukrainian Skelya Regiment confirmed, according to the Kyiv Independent and NV.ua, that two of its soldiers were captured during a flag-raising operation that went awry in Kostiantynivka on July 20. This episode serves as a reminder that, even in a sector where Ukraine had claimed recent gains, every advance remains reversible and costly.

The broader context of a contested town

In the preceding weeks, Kostiantynivka had experienced a series of contradictory developments: Russia had claimed to have fully captured the city on July 3, a claim denied by the Ukrainian General Staff, according to Reuters; the Skelya Regiment then claimed to have driven Russian forces out of the city on July 19, according to Euromaidan Press, and a Ukrainian flag had been raised in the city center on July 18. This back-and-forth of conflicting claims illustrates, once again, the difficulty of verifying in real time who exactly controls a contested town.

A Coordination Center Hit by Drones

Also in the days around July 20, according to RBC-Ukraine and the New Voice of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and Alpha units carried out a strike involving thirteen drones on an FSB coordination center located in a resort-style hotel complex in occupied Kherson. The site reportedly housed about 100 military personnel and agents, more than 70 vehicles, and featured fortifications, checkpoints, and underground shelters. A major fire is said to have broken out.

According to the same sources, this operation is part of a “40-day plan” initiated by President Zelensky to intensify strikes against Russian capabilities in the occupied zone. Thirteen drones targeting a hotel converted into a command post: this is a rather stark summary of what this war has become, where pre-war tourism has given way to camouflaged military targets.

Geolocation Data to Be Treated with Caution

An analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, based on third-party video geolocation data, suggests that the site struck is located in Shchaslyvtseve, approximately 130 kilometers from the right bank of the Dnieper River. This information, which comes from an independent analysis but is itself based on unofficial open-source data, should be treated as an estimate rather than a definitive geographical confirmation.

Three Theaters, One Strategy

When we consider the events of this single night—the oil depot in the Moscow Oblast, six ships in the Black Sea, the FSB center in occupied Kherson, and the defense of Kostiantynivka—we get a coherent picture of a Ukrainian army that, four years after the invasion, has learned to conduct multiple campaigns simultaneously rather than concentrating all its resources on a single theater. This capability, documented by multiple sources for this single night, guarantees nothing regarding the overall outcome of the conflict, but it changes the nature of the pressure being exerted on Moscow.

This is no longer the single-front war described to us in 2022; it has become a multi-pronged war, where each prong—oil, ships, intelligence, the front lines—is activated almost simultaneously. None of these levers, taken in isolation, is sufficient to tip the balance of the conflict; together, they create cumulative pressure whose actual effect will not be measurable for several months.

The Limitations of This Interpretation

This apparent coherence should not be mistaken for certainty regarding explicit central coordination. Nothing in the sources consulted allows us to assert that these simultaneous strikes follow a single plan made public in its entirety; it is just as plausible that they result from multiple command structures acting according to distinct but converging operational timelines. Methodological caution remains warranted.

Asymmetric Communication

Governor Vorobyov was quick to report on civilian casualties in Podolsk, a decision driven more by internal crisis management than by an acknowledgment of the strike’s strategic significance. None of the sources consulted mention an official Russian statement detailing the extent of the damage to the oil depot itself or the ships hit in the Black Sea. In cases like this, silence sometimes speaks as loudly as a statement: Moscow counts its civilian casualties aloud and its strategic losses in whispers.

This asymmetry in communication is not unique to this one night; it has characterized the entire conflict since 2022, with each side choosing which figures to make public based on its own strategic narrative. The role of the reporter here is limited to pointing out this disparity without drawing any definitive conclusions about what remains hidden.

What the Images Show, and What They Do Not Prove

The images of black smoke over Podolsk, widely shared on social media on July 20, provide visual evidence of a fire at that location, but they are not sufficient, on their own, to establish the exact extent of the damage to the targeted oil depot. This is a methodological limitation common to all real-time coverage of this type of event: visual evidence confirms a specific occurrence; it does not replace a verified assessment of the damage.

Western Support Takes Shape

This Ukrainian strike campaign is not taking place in a diplomatic vacuum. According to reports from the same week, the U.S. Senate was advancing a key bill on aid to Ukraine, including provisions for strengthened sanctions against Russia proposed notably by Senator John Thune. These discussions, documented separately from the events of July 20, outline the broader political framework within which Ukraine’s ability to finance and sustain this type of deep-strike campaign operates. No single vote in the U.S. Senate has ever, on its own, set a fire in Podolsk; but without the ammunition and intelligence that such a vote helps fund, the fire might never have happened.

The NATO summit in Ankara in early July also saw the 32 allies commit to substantial military aid for Ukraine in 2026 and 2027. This framework of Western support, while not directly funding every individual strike documented that night, provides the logistical foundation without which the frequency of these operations would be difficult to sustain over the long term.

The Limitations of This Geopolitical Interpretation

It would, however, be an overreach to establish a direct and documented causal link between a specific Senate vote and a drone strike that occurred the same month. The sources consulted confirm a correlation between growing Western support and the intensification of Ukraine’s deep-strike capabilities, without, however, establishing a single, verifiable causal chain between each political decision and each specific military operation.

The Economic Calculation from the Russian Side

Every damaged oil depot and every ship in the “ghost fleet” that is out of commission represents, for Moscow, a cost of replacement or repair that adds to months of similar attrition. Analyses cited by the BBC regarding fuel shortages in more than 90% of Russian regions suggest that this accumulation of strikes is beginning to have a measurable impact on Russia’s war economy, even though no source allows for a precise quantification of the portion attributable solely to Ukrainian strikes compared to other factors, such as Western sanctions or difficulties specific to the Russian oil industry.

We will never see a statement from the Kremlin saying, “We are running out of diesel because of Ukrainian drones.” But we see diesel exports being banned and regions being rationed, and that is enough to guess what the official silence prefers not to confirm.

The Human Cost on the Ukrainian Side

On the Ukrainian side, the cost of this campaign is measured differently: in drones expended, in naval crews mobilized for high-risk operations, and in lives lost on the ground fronts that continue to demand the bulk of attention and human resources, as in Kostiantynivka. Kyiv’s ability to simultaneously wage a defensive ground war and conduct a campaign of deep offensive strikes relies on constant resource allocation, the precise details of which are necessarily lost on the outside observer.

Shared Concern Over the Escalation

According to several analyses published that same week, European capitals are watching this gradual escalation of deep-strike attacks by Ukraine with growing concern, aware that every new target struck on Russian soil brings the conflict closer—symbolically, at least—to a threshold that no Western actor wishes to cross. The National Security Journal published an analysis suggesting that the actual limit of this deep-strike strategy would not be Moscow, but rather the Baltic region, where an uncontrolled escalation could have regional consequences far broader than the Ukrainian theater alone. Every drone that reaches Podolsk brings this war closer to a threshold that no one in Brussels or Washington wants to name out loud, but which everyone is watching closely.

This concern has not, for the time being, prevented continued Western support for Ukraine, but it illustrates a structural tension between the desire to support Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and strike back, and the fear that this very capability could trigger a disproportionate Russian response targeting Western interests more directly.

Moscow’s Reported Response to Ceasefire Proposals

According to another analysis by the National Security Journal, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly rejected a Ukrainian proposal for a ceasefire specifically regarding deep strikes, stating that he intends to continue this form of confrontation. A side that refuses a ceasefire on a specific point on the battlefield is saying—without putting it that way—that it still believes it can gain something on that specific point. This information, if confirmed, would indicate that Moscow views this war of long-range strikes as an area where it believes it still has room to maneuver, rather than as a vulnerability to be negotiated away.

What Recent Trends Suggest

If the pattern of the past four weeks continues, nothing in the sources consulted suggests a slowdown in this Ukrainian campaign of strikes against oil depots and the ghost fleet. The long-range strike command created by Zelensky in early July, according to the New Voice of Ukraine, appears designed precisely to institutionalize and intensify this type of operation rather than to treat them as isolated strikes. A war that establishes a command dedicated to a single mission does not intend to treat that mission as secondary.

The question that remains open—and which the sources consulted do not allow us to resolve—is how long Ukraine will be able to maintain this pace without depleting its own stockpiles of long-range drones or exposing itself to a major Russian counterattack specifically targeting the production sites of those very drones.

The night of July 20, 2026, did not, on its own, change the course of this war. It confirmed the war’s trajectory: a Ukraine that has learned to strike from afar, at sea and on land, while continuing to defend cities like Kostiantynivka inch by inch; a Russia that absorbs these blows without ever fully acknowledging their scale, while continuing to strike Ukrainian targets like that ship near Odesa, with the human toll that entails. The oil depot in the Moscow Oblast, the six ships in the Black Sea, the FSB headquarters in occupied Kherson: each of these events, taken alone, would be a footnote. Together, they make up a night of war that increasingly resembles all the others—and perhaps that is what is most revealing.

I conclude this column with the same caution with which I began it: no available evidence allows us to assert that this sequence marks a decisive turning point. What it does confirm—with the certainty afforded by multiple, converging sources—is the persistence of a patient Ukrainian campaign against Russia’s energy and logistics infrastructure, waged in parallel with a ground defense that continues to take a heavy toll in lives. One always ends up wondering how many more nights like this one we will have to recount before one of them finally bears a name we will never forget.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist