The Ukrainian military looks determined to permanently take the port of Tuapse offline.

Overnight, the port, one of Russia’s main crude export outlets on the Black Sea, was hit again by drone strikes, with unconfirmed reports suggesting that a merchant vessel had been struck while alongside.

Splash reported on a similar attack to Tuapse eight days ago in which two merchant ships — both foreign-flagged — were damaged and large fires were visible at berths 1A and 1B of the deepwater terminal. 

The Tuapse facility has been a repeated target of Ukrainian drones this year. The refinery and terminal complex has a processing capacity of 240,000 barrels per day.

With around 20% of Russia’s national refinery capacity knocked out by drones in recent months, authorities have started urgently building metal cages around oil facilities to protect them from future attacks.