Last week Russian warships and aircraft bombarded the strategic port of Odesa with 50 cruise missiles as Vladimir Putin’s forces opened a new front in southern Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has shifted from an all-out attack across many fronts, including the capital Kyiv to a more concentrated move on the eastern regions of Ukraine. So, the attack on Odesa served another function. Mainly to landlock Ukraine and deny them a port in the Black Sea.
Since 2014 Russian separatists have been engaged in battles with Ukrainian forces in the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk following the annexation of Crimea. Because of the preparedness of this eastern front, the battle will have to be intense for Russia to finally complete the land grab.
Moscow claimed that an oil refinery and depots were destroyed in the attack of Odesa. But thankfully there were no reported casualties even as residential buildings were also caught up in the line of fire. Some analysts are saying that if the idea is to build a land corridor from Kharkiv down to Mariupol and into Crimea before moving west to capture the entirety of Ukraine, the Russians will have shot themselves in the foot if they destroy the petrochemical facilities and port in Odesa.
The lack of deep seaports in the Black Sea which would allow the largest of foreign tankers to collect Russian oil is also matched by the inconvenience of many marine fuel sellers having already stopped serving vessels flying the Russian flag at major European hubs which include Spain and Malta. There are also repercussions from the sanctions and war, with insurance companies not insuring the shipments of fuel. The pipelines are having to be closed off as storage facilities are full and where there could be vessels used to store fuel there is now a lack of availability of those vessels globally.
Losing access to refueling points in the Mediterranean Sea poses major logistical problems for Russian oil tankers going from Baltic ports to Asia and creates safety concerns over potentially being stuck at sea with flammable cargoes, shipping sources say. Ideally, there would be pipelines running from Russia to the far east but the ones that are functioning are not connected to the pipes that run toward Europe, and the maintenance and infrastructure teams with all of the technical know-how have left the country when Western firms bailed on Russia.
