Ukrainian forces struck two Russian "shadow fleet" oil tankers near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and launched a drone attack on the Baltic port of Primorsk overnight, in the latest escalation of Kyiv's campaign to degrade Russia's energy export capacity. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed both operations, saying the tankers "had been actively used to transport oil — not anymore," and vowed that Ukraine's long-range capabilities would continue to be developed "at sea, in the air, and on land."

The shadow fleet refers to tankers that sail under foreign flags and are used by Russia to move oil covertly, circumventing international sanctions. The extent of the damage to the two vessels has not been officially confirmed. Meanwhile, the attack on Primorsk — a major oil export terminal near the Finnish border in Russia's Leningrad region, with a handling capacity of around one million barrels per day — caused a fire that was subsequently extinguished with no oil spill reported. Leningrad Governor Alexander Drozdenko said more than 60 Ukrainian drones were shot down in the region during the assault.

The strikes are part of a sustained and intensifying effort by Ukraine to inflict economic damage on Russia through its energy sector. Over the past two weeks alone, Ukraine has hit the Tuapse oil refinery — one of Russia's largest, located on its southwestern Black Sea coast — at least four times, causing major fires. Zelenskyy has claimed that Ukrainian air strikes on Russian oil infrastructure cost Moscow approximately 2.3 billion dollars in oil revenues in March alone, hampering its ability to fund the war.

The overnight operations unfolded amid a broader exchange of drone and missile attacks. Russia fired 268 drones and one Iskander-M ballistic missile at Ukraine, with Ukrainian air defences intercepting or disabling 249 of the drones, according to the Ukrainian air force. Russian strikes killed at least three people across Ukraine, including two in the southern Odesa region — home to key export terminals — and one in the Kherson region. On the Russian side, drone attacks killed one person in a village in the Moscow region and injured three others, including a child, in the western Smolensk region.

The escalating strikes reflect the degree to which both sides have come to rely on long-range drone warfare as a central feature of a conflict now entering its fourth year. On the ground, Russian forces continued to advance toward the eastern city of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, reportedly approaching within roughly a kilometre of its southern outskirts. Diplomatic efforts to end the war, including talks brokered by the United States, remain stalled, with fighting continuing across multiple fronts.