Ukraine carried the war deep into Russia's naval rear on August 12, striking the Black Sea Fleet base at Novorossiysk and occupied Crimea in an operation President Volodymyr Zelensky described as a 'unique operation' [2]. Ukraine's General Staff said four Russian vessels were damaged: the frigates Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen, the small missile ship Buyan-M, and the patrol ship Vasil Bykov [1]. The strike used Palianytsia jet-powered drones, Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles and naval drones against air-defense positions, piers and port infrastructure [1].
Novorossiysk sits more than 300 km from the front line, which is much of the point [1]. The port is where a large share of the fleet repositioned after Ukrainian strikes made Sevastopol untenable, and on August 12 it took hits to the facilities that keep it running. The grain terminal temporarily suspended operations, and the Sheskharis oil terminal was struck along with port infrastructure supporting the fleet [1][2]. The wider assault, by Russian regional accounts, involved several hundred drones across Novorossiysk, Anapa, Gelendzhik and the Temryuksky district, with explosions also reported near the Balaklava power plant in occupied Crimea and near the Crimean Bridge [2].
The human cost has to be read carefully, because two counts are in circulation for two different areas. For the city of Novorossiysk, regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev reported one death, an 8-year-old boy, and eight people injured including a child, with 21 residential buildings damaged by falling drone debris and four businesses affected [2]. A separate wire figure, attributed to the Associated Press and covering the broader Krasnodar region, put the toll at three killed including an 8-year-old and 24 injured. That wider-region figure was not independently fetched for this piece and is treated as unverified; it is a larger geographic scope, not a correction to the city count, and the two are not the same number of the same thing.
Zelensky framed the strike as part of a standing campaign against the fleet. 'The occupation fleet and all the infrastructure supporting it will not be safe as long as Russian aggression continues,' he said [1].
