Ukrainian drones struck Port Kavkaz on the Chushka Spit in the Kerch Strait on the night of 14 March — the same operation that hit the Afipsky refinery further north in Krasnodar Krai. Three people were wounded and a vessel was damaged1. The port services the Crimea ferry crossing, the primary alternative route for supplying Russian forces on the peninsula.
The Kerch Strait is Crimea's supply link to the Russian mainland. The Kerch Bridge — damaged by truck bomb in October 2022 and by naval drone in July 2023 — carries the rail and road traffic sustaining Russian forces on the peninsula. When bridge capacity was reduced after those attacks, ferry routes through Port Kavkaz absorbed the overflow. Striking the port pressures both arteries simultaneously. Ukraine's maritime interdiction campaign has extended steadily in reach: the destruction of the sanctioned LNG carrier Arctic Metagaz off the Libyan coast on 3 March demonstrated capability far beyond the Black Sea.
The paired strikes — Afipsky for economic attrition, Port Kavkaz for logistics interdiction — reflect coordinated targeting across two distinct operational objectives in a single night. For the Russian garrison in Crimea, each successful strike on the ferry route raises the cost of resupply and narrows the margin between operational sustainment and logistical strain.
