What happened

Ukrainian forces struck the Sheskharis oil-loading terminal and an adjoining Russian naval base at Novorossiysk overnight into 12 August, with fires confirmed at the terminal where crude is loaded onto tankers and thermal signatures detected by satellite at both the naval base and petroleum storage areas. Regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev claimed the raid involved 'several hundred' drones, a figure the reviewed reporting said could not be independently verified; some reporting on the same strike wave described a mix of naval drones, Neptune/Palianytsia cruise missiles and unmanned maritime systems. Novorossiysk mayor Andrei Kravchenko declared a state of emergency, saying the strike ruptured two major water mains and forced authorities to suspend water supply to residents; a crisis center was set up and utility crews worked to restore service, and thick smoke was reported over the port area. The city's grain terminal, operated by Demetra Holding, and other commercial terminals suspended operations to assess damage. Casualty reporting diverged across the reviewed sources: Kravchenko and Al Jazeera cited one child killed and two people injured in the city, with the wider Krasnodar region reporting eight injured, while a separate wire report cited three killed; the reviewed sources did not reconcile this discrepancy, so no single casualty figure is treated as confirmed here. The extent of any production impact at Sheskharis itself was not established.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.