Ukrainian drone evades Russian helicopter fire, strikes sanctioned oil tanker near Sochi

A Ukrainian drone dodged gunfire from a Russian helicopter and slammed into an oil tanker off the coast of Sochi, according to footage released by Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. The target was the Armada Leader, a sanctioned Russian-flagged vessel that operates as part of Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, the collection of tankers used to skirt international oil export restrictions. The strike, which hit the vessel’s bridge area, is part of a broader Ukrainian campaign called Operation MoLoChKa. That campaign has been running since early July 2026 and has reportedly struck a total of 285 vessels connected to Russia’s sanction-evading maritime infrastructure. A summer of maritime strikes The pace of attacks tells its own story. In July alone, Ukrainian forces targeted 215 vessels. August saw 54 strikes. By early September, 16 more had been hit before the Armada Leader footage made headlines on September 12. The Armada Leader itself sits under sanctions from Ukraine, the EU, Switzerland, and Canada. It belongs to a fleet specifically designed to move Russian crude oil around the restrictions that Western nations imposed after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The released f...