It was a follow-up strike to a damaging attack hitting Tuapse ten days ago. There are unconfirmed reports Ukraine also launched its big Flamingo cruise missile at the port.
10 November 2025
Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) forces overnight Sunday to Monday launched amphibious and airborne kamikaze drone strikes against targets in south-west Russia, with the main effort concentrating on a Black Sea oil tanker loading terminal critical to the Kremlin for export.
Sea-launched robot boats hit the Russian port city of Tuapse, one of Russia’s two main terminals for oil export via the Black Sea. Initial reports of an attack in progress reached local news platforms shortly after 1 a.m. on Monday (2200 Sunday UTC). Video uploaded from viewpoints inside the city documented two explosions in the central port area, and fires.
With a capacity to trans-ship around 17 million metric tons of oil products/year, Tuapse is Russia’s second-biggest oil products export transshipment facility on the Black Sea.
Ukrainian robot boats had previously attacked Tuapse on Sept. 24 and overnight on Nov. 1-2. The latter raid damaged two tankers, halted fuel exports and refinery operations for days, caused an oil spill and forced tankers to abandon the port.
A Russian Krasnodar Krai defense command statement made public more than six hours after the latest attack stated shore defenses “successfully intercepted” four unmanned boats.
There was neither damage to major infrastructure not injuries to people, but the detonation of one boat close to shore knocked out the windows on the second floor of a two-story house, and damaged a garage and boathouse, that official Russian announcement claimed.
Local social media contradicted the official Russian narrative of an ineffective Ukrainian attack destroyed by local defenses, and reported a single tanker had been tied up at an oil-loading pier at the time of the kamikaze boat raid and the blasts reported in the port.
Independent geolocators evaluating video and still photographs pinpointed one explosion to the western tip of Tuapse wharf 167. The pier is inside Tuapse harbor and normally used to load smaller tankers with Russian crude oil for export.
Scattered heavy machine gun bursts were recorded as the attack took place. Security camera video showed an explosion rising more than 50 meters and an orange flash lighting up the night sky. Apartment residents near the port recorded images of a fire burning after the attack. Some Ukrainian milbloggers suggested the tanker was destroyed but Kyiv Post could not confirm that claim.
Russia’s national railroad company extended to Nov. 13 a ban on rail shipments to Tuapse port, citing insufficient train car handling capacity, the Reuters news agency reported on Sunday. The wire report went public several hours before the Ukrainian kamikaze boats struck.
The Ukrainian milblogger Strike News reported the Ukrainian raider boats launched from Ukraine’s Odesa region and sailed some 900 kilometers through international waters to hit Tuapse port.
The Ukraine’s Magura sea drone, a domestically developed robot boat first fielded in 2023 and in wide use by AFU special operations units since then, has a reported cruising speed of 22 knots (41 kph). Past raids launched from Odesa region Magura raider groups spent one or two days at sea before reaching targeted areas on Russia’s Black Sea coast, according to statements by Ukraine’s military intelligence agency HUR.
A Magura drone’s terminal attack speed is more than double cruising speed, complicating defense against the incoming weapon. Reports by midday Monday had not identified the type of attack boat used against Tuapse.
Aside from the sea drone attack, Images reaching open sources by midday on Monday showed a sizable rater in shoreline adjacent to Tuapse port, and blast-damage to beach-side buildings.
The independent Russian news platform Supernova+ reported a Ukrainian cruise missile, possibly a newly fielded missile called “Flamingo,” had missed the port to strike nearby. Kyiv Post could not confirm the report independently.
In air raids taking place simultaneously with the confirmed robot boat and possible cruise missile attack on Tuapse port on the Black Sea shore, waves of Ukrainian kamikaze drones hit railroad infrastructure in the Russian port city Rostov, on the north-eastern shore of the adjacent Sea of Azov.
Official Russian reports of the strike led by the Russian Defense Ministry said that between five and ten long-range Ukrainian drones attempted to enter Russian Federation airspace above Rostov region and all were shot down without injury to people or damage to property.
Images uploaded by civilian Rostov internet users contained audio of propeller-driven drones flying at low altitude and explosions. Some posts claimed the Ukrainian aircraft had targeted railroad infrastructure near Rostov city train station. Ukrainian military spokesperson Petro Andriushchenko in a Monday statement said the strike hit the Rostov region’s Likhovskaya switching station.
Across Russia overnight, according a Monday morning Russian Defense Ministry situation report, at least 50 Ukrainian long-range drones were spotted by Russian air defenses, engaged and “destroyed,” with the majority sighted above Russia’s southern and western regions.
Air travel was interrupted across that territory with the airports Rostov, Saratov, Penza, Samara, Tambov, Kaluga and Ufa partially or completely locked down due to drone threat.
The deepest drone penetrations of the night reached airspace above Samara region, more than 1,000 km. Inside Russian Federation territory, data published by Andriushchenko showed.
Ukraine in late July launched a strike campaign initially targeting Russian oil processing and transport capacity, and later expanding to rail infrastructure and power grid nodes, with the official objectives of reducing Russian state income from overseas oil sales and retaliation for Russian bomber, missile, and drone attacks against Ukrainian homes and businesses.
Using robot boats, propeller- and jet-driven drones and small numbers of domestically manufactured and European nation-donated cruise missiles Ukrainian strike forces since then through Monday had launched at least 160 confirmed attacks against Russian energy infrastructure.
Independent estimates of total Russian Federation oil processing capacity lost due to Ukrainian bombardment from 20-40 percent of total national capacity and twice that in of Russia’s western and central territories in range of Ukrainian drones.
In late October and early November, the Ukrainian strike campaign, usually hitting between two and four targets a night, widened with attacks against Russian power grid substations and city heating plants.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in early November comments said that Russian attempts to force Ukrainian civilians to suffer in homes without power or heating would be retaliated by the AFU in kind, but more effectively.
A Sunday Ukrainian strike hit and turned into rubble a four-story wall of the TETS-1e main heating plant of the major Russian city Voronezh, damaging the main boiler and forcing a shut-down. Thus far in the expanded strike campaign cities like Voronezh relatively close to Ukraine have born the brunt of Ukrainian drone attacks, particularly the cities Bryansk and Belgorod.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/63972