Tuapse port, previously attacked by Ukrainian drones, has likely stopped operating, Novaya-Europe found after analyzing data from the VesselFinder service.
Shift in maritime traffic. Over the past 24 hours, the port has not received a single tanker or civilian vessel. The ship closest to Tuapse is currently more than 60 kilometers away.
At the same time, as Novaya-Europe previously wrote, the port normally handles about 8-10 vessels per day on average. On April 20, the day Ukrainian drones attacked the refinery, the port handled only three ships.
Meanwhile, vessel traffic to Novorossiysk, located about 160 km from Tuapse, has increased significantly. Over the past day, the port has already received 41 vessels, mostly oil tankers. Novorossiysk usually handles 15 to 25 ships per day.
What happened. On the night of April 20, Ukrainian drones attacked the marine oil loading terminal in Tuapse. Ukraine’s General Staff reported a strike on the Tuapse oil refinery, which forms a single production complex together with the marine terminal. The fire there is still being fought.
After that, reports of an “oil rain” appeared on social media. Only on April 22 did the operational headquarters of Krasnodar Krai acknowledge that permissible levels of harmful substances in the air had been exceeded: Rospotrebnadzor recorded benzene, xylene, and soot concentrations at two to three times the allowable limits in some parts of the city. Despite this, school attendance in the city was not canceled, and organizations’ work schedules were not changed.
An environmental expert interviewed by Agenstvo said that harmful substance concentrations in the air in Tuapse have been recorded since April 16, from the time of the first major fire caused by a Ukrainian drone attack.