Ukraine Strikes Russian Black Sea Fuel Hub Handling 4 Million Tons a Year

Ukrainian drones struck a fuel-oil terminal at Russia’s Novorossiysk port, sparking fires and damaging at least one storage tank at a facility capable of handling roughly 4 million metric tons of petroleum products annually, according to a GEOINT analysis by Militarnyi on September 9.

Residents of Novorossiysk began reporting drones overhead, Russian air defense activity, and explosions around midnight.

Videos subsequently posted online showed a fire burning near the city’s port infrastructure.

Russian authorities warned residents about an incoming Ukrainian drone operation, while a missile alert was also declared in the region.

Novorossiysk Mayor Andrei Kravchenko later acknowledged that local businesses had been hit, describing the damage as the result of “falling debris.”

Satellite data from NASA’s FIRMS fire-monitoring system detected several thermal anomalies around Novorossiysk following the overnight strike.

Available imagery and geolocation analysis indicate that one of the fires broke out at the Novorossiysk Fuel Oil Terminal, where at least one storage tank was damaged.

The facility forms part of the wider Novorossiysk transport hub and operates within the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port complex.

It specializes in storing and transferring fuel oil and lighter petroleum products, with an annual throughput capacity of approximately 4 million metric tons.

Earlier, reports emerged that authorities in Russia’s Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a sprawling oil-producing region responsible for roughly 40% of the country’s crude output, are preparing for the possibility of Ukrainian drone strikes despite the region being about 2,200 kilometers, or 1,370 miles, from the Ukrainian border.

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