Ukrainian aerial- and sea-drone attacks have turned Russia's busiest seaport into a place cargo ships increasingly refuse to sail, choking both imports from China and exports of grain and oil, according to The Moscow Times. Logistics and trade executives describe a route to Novorossiysk grown too risky to use, and a Russian grain-industry group warns the Black Sea export corridors could shut down entirely. The strikes that once spared container ships have now reached them too.
The China route importers are told to skip
"On the China–Novorossiysk route everything is now difficult, the delays are huge," one importer told The Moscow Times.
Freight forwarders now tell clients to avoid the route outright, three colleagues said. Aerial drones and unmanned boats make the approaches too unpredictable. Earlier strikes fell mostly on grain carriers and oil tankers. Ukrainian drones hit a container ship carrying imports in late July. Then, overnight on 1 August, a sea drone sank the FESCO vessel Yanina about 130 miles offshore. The crew got out. The cargo did not.
Ukraine hits 201 Russian shadow fleet ships in three weeks. Commander says Crimea’s supply route is now blocked indefinitely
Sailings drop as the campaign widens
Large-ship sailings from Novorossiysk fell 38% in July, the Moscow Times says, citing ship-tracking data, with tanker runs down by half.
"But now the situation will get worse, because container ships have also become a target," a logistics manager told the publication.
This is one edge of a wider Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian shipping, codenamed MoLoChKa. The name is an acronym for "Moscow will fall through Crimea." Its own public scoreboard counts 206 vessels hit in July by the Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) alone, with another logged in August. The SBS have mostly burned the small tankers and support ships that keep Russia's sanctioned shadow fleet moving.
Ukrainian drones slash Kerch ferry crossing capacity by 75%, as daily strikes continue on Russian vessels and occupation energy infrastructure
What Russia stands to lose
Novorossiysk carries every fifth ton of Russia's seaborne exports: Urals oil, Kazakh crude, wheat for Egypt, and fertilizer for Asia and Africa.
Attacks across the Azov–Black Sea region could cost Russia up to 30–35 million tons of wheat exports this season, a grain-exporters' union estimated. That would gut a harvest analysts expected to top 44-45 million tons.
"Systematic attacks that began in July could soon lead to the complete blocking of the export corridors of the Black Sea basin," the union said.
Ukraine's drones had already cut into Russia's seaborne grain trade this summer, and repeated hits on the port's main oil terminal have dented crude loadings. Russia keeps pouring money into the port, building a new terminal worth 120.7 billion rubles (about $1.5 billion), even as ships stay away, The Moscow Times said.
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