Russia Steps Up Strikes on Civilian Vessels in Ukrainian Ports

Ukraine's Ministry of Reconstruction, Infrastructure, and Transport says Russia is deliberately working to intimidate international shipowners and erode confidence in the safety of civilian maritime traffic. According to the ministry, attacks on Ukraine's port infrastructure are growing not only more frequent but more brutal — with vessels now being struck repeatedly even after they've already sustained damage.
On Monday, August 3, border guards reported that a civilian tugboat came under attack, hit by a Shahed drone that set the vessel ablaze. Emergency crews and border guard personnel responded to help extinguish the fire. Photos released afterward showed the tug wrapped in flames, though officials did not disclose the exact port where the strike occurred.
Mykolaiv has also come under renewed pressure. Georgy Reshetilov, acting head of the regional military administration, described a string of strikes on the port and the ships docked there — including one vessel that has reportedly been stranded in port since the war's early days. On Sunday, August 2, two Shahed drones hit the port, damaging infrastructure and two ships. The following day brought an unusual daylight assault that left three more vessels damaged.
The ministry noted that the geographic scope of these attacks has widened, now stretching from the greater Odesa area to Ukraine's Danube ports as well. Ten people were reported injured in the latest round of shelling.
Officials pointed to five separate attacks recorded in just the first days of August as proof that the campaign is escalating. Three of those strikes hit civilian ships while docked in port; the other two targeted vessels moving through the sea corridor.
The ministry described the pattern as a systematic campaign against civilian shipping — one that now extends even to vessels already damaged and no longer handling cargo. These ships, it said, are being struck again and again, whether tied up at the dock or sitting at anchor, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to rattle shipowners and discourage them from using Ukrainian ports at all.
The scale of the problem became clear in July's numbers: 67 separate attacks on seaport facilities over the month, damaging 35 vessels in port and another 22 while underway in the sea corridor.