UKRAINE boasted today of a “unique” overnight strike on the Russian Black Sea base of  Novorossiysk today, describing it as “the last major stronghold of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky said it hit air defences, piers and other port infrastructure. Russian authorities said the strikes had killed two, one an eight-year-old child and one an adult in nearby Temyruk who died in hospital from wounds sustained when his house was struck. They said they had shot down over 500 Ukrainian drones deployed in the assault.

The Grushovaya oil transshipment complex near Novorossiysk is one of the largest transshipment hubs in southern Russia for oil and petroleum products, and the United States has urged Ukraine not to bomb the base — in February, and again on July 31 — because damage to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which operates a pipeline from Kazakhstan’s landlocked Caspian Sea coast to Novorossiysk’s port on the Black Sea, could affect the profits of US oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil, which hold significant stakes in Kazakh oilfields. There was no immediate response from Washington to Ukraine’s renewed strikes on the port.

Ukraine reported two deaths from Russian bombardment in the southern Kherson region, and said a shopping arcade had been destroyed in strikes on Zaporizhzhia.

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed recent seizures of Russian commercial vessels by foreign navies, including the British and French, saying Russia would “respond in kind” to such “piracy” and he had issued instructions to that effect to the Defence Ministry and the Pacific fleet.