Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) struck 12 additional vessels from Russia’s “shadow fleet” in the Black and Azov seas during the first week of August, bringing the total number of ships targeted in a month-long maritime drone campaign to 218, USF Commander Robert “Magyar” Brovdi reported.
Brovdi detailed the progress of “Operation MoLoChKa,” a joint USF and Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) campaign launched on July 6 to disrupt Russian maritime logistics and fuel deliveries.
According to the commander, 134 vessels have been struck in the Sea of Azov and 84 in the Black Sea since the operation began. He also published video footage showing a recent strike on a vessel near the Russian resort city of Gelendzhik, which bypassed local air defenses, including three missiles fired by a Pantsir-S1 system.
“Navigation through the Kerch Strait has been indefinitely blocked since July 10, now for 30 days, until further orders by the Freedom-Loving Ukrainian Bird,” Brovdi wrote, referring to the USF.
Brovdi recently explained that the operation’s name, “MoLoChKa,” is a Ukrainian acronym for “Moscow will fall through Crimea.”
Strikes on Russian energy and logistics
The latest maritime statistics were released alongside reports that the USF struck a total of 102 Russian targets over August 6 and 7.
The recent strikes reached deep behind Russian lines, hitting military positions, logistics networks, air defenses, and infrastructure supporting Moscow’s occupation forces. The targeted maritime vessels included two tankers and four dry cargo ships.
The two-day campaign also hit eight Russian troop deployment sites, two fuel and ammunition depots, two radar systems, a Buk surface-to-air missile system, locomotives, fuel tankers, and three repeaters used to control Shahed/Geran attack drones.
The Augus 6-7 operation additionally struck 10 electrical facilities across the Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions as part of a parallel campaign dubbed “Crimean Switch Off.”
Targets included the 330-kilovolt Zoria substation in the occupied Donetsk region, the 330-kilovolt Myrna substation near Mariupol, and several energy facilities near Berdiansk and in the Luhansk region.
These recent strikes bring the total number of energy facilities hit across Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories since July 1 to 211.