Ukraine’s head of the Black Sea Monitoring group Andrii Klymenko notes that not a single tanker entered the Russian oil terminal Sheskharis in Novorossiysk for a couple of days after Russians claimed that Ukrainian drones attacked the port. Several videos showed some minor explosions in the port while Russian officials said contradictory statements regarding the alleged attack and its time.
While it is hard to establish what indeed happened in Novorossiysk and whether Ukrainian drones were involved, the oil terminal suspended its operation, Klymenko writes.
“The situation is quite unusual,” he writes. “This is the last month (with 15 days to go) before the start of the EU oil embargo. There was usually a non-stop conveyor, even a rush to get as much oil as possible from Russia in the remaining days…“