Russia’s Secret Fleet “Didn’t Exist”… Then Ukraine ANNIHILATED It

Name: Russia’s Secret Fleet “Didn’t Exist”… Then Ukraine ANNIHILATED It
Uploaded: 2026-07-14T19:57:33+00:00
Duration: 17 min 51 s
Channel: The Military Show

00:00We can't believe what we're seeing in the waters around Crimea right now.

00:03Russian Shadow Fleet ships that don't exist are being struck like crazy.

00:09Over and over, Ukraine strikes.

00:11This is a savage campaign of ship sinking that goes down as the largest drone strike in naval history.

00:18Russian supply ships and fuel tankers are simply disappearing, lost to fire and smoke.

00:24And the best of it is that Putin is powerless to stop any of it, as Ukraine storms closer to

00:30liberating Crimea by the day.

00:32How do we know Putin can do nothing?

00:35But Ukraine's results prove it.

00:37We've seen a week of destruction that shows us that something massive has changed in Ukraine's naval strategy.

00:43We start on July 7th.

00:46That's when the news broke that Ukraine had pulled off a strike that achieved industrial-scale results.

00:51Spoiler alert, this ended up being the smallest of the five days of strikes.

00:56Eight of Russia's fuel tankers in the Sea of Azov were hit by Ukrainian drones,

01:01alongside a ferry being used to ship supplies to Crimea and a dry cargo ship with the same job.

01:08The Shadow Fleet is leaving the area, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdy, blared on Telegram, adding,

01:16the battle for fuel for Crimea in the Sea of Azov continues.

01:20That's a hint about why Ukraine is doing this.

01:23Isolation of the Crimean Peninsula is the goal.

01:26With the overland routes cut off, Ukraine now focuses on shipping.

01:30If this were an isolated strike, it would still be massive for Ukraine.

01:34Not only would it have exacerbated a fuel crisis in Crimea that has spread so deep

01:38that even Russian soldiers are being told that they are now only allowed to start their vehicles

01:43if they are going on a combat mission.

01:45But this strike sent a message.

01:47Ukraine's drones can both reach the Sea of Azov and conduct strikes right by the Kerch bridge

01:53that is the only route out of Crimea for hundreds of thousands of Russian occupiers.

01:58But Ukraine had more up its sleeve.

02:01So much more.

02:02Like a magician, Ukraine has been making Russian Shadow Fleet ships disappear all over the Sea of Azov.

02:08July 8th brought with it a new report.

02:11This time it was nine tankers struck in the Sea of Azov, Brovdy reported,

02:15giving Ukraine a running total of 17 tankers down in two days.

02:21Ready to see the next Shadow Showdown, Brovdy asked in a mocking Telegram post

02:26to mark the day of strikes.

02:28Ready?

02:28Putin already sees it.

02:30He's being forced to watch as fuel tankers burn and his Crimean air defences seem utterly

02:35incapable of doing anything about it.

02:38Ukraine has a strategy of weakening Russia's logistics throughout the Crimean region,

02:42and it's fast becoming apparent that drone strikes against fuel trucks were just the start.

02:48Now tankers are in the mix.

02:50Russia might have been hoping for a day off at this point.

02:53If it was, Ukraine wasn't about to deliver any respite.

02:56On July 9th, the new voice of Ukraine reported that Ukraine unleashed another overnight attack,

03:02with the targets this time being 12 of Russia's Shadow Fleet oil tankers,

03:07along with a dry cargo ship and a tugboat.

03:10Frankly, we're losing count at this point.

03:12And just to add to Russia's oil woes, Ukraine also used this night to attack the Yugrusi oil

03:17terminal in Batysk, which is in Russia's Rostov oblast.

03:21The terminal is part of Russia's fuel export supply chain,

03:24and it also provides fuel to Russian occupiers operating in the southern direction in Ukraine.

03:29So Ukraine isn't just striking the Shadow Fleet ships,

03:33it's taking out the source of Russia's fuel.

03:36Still, there were far more ships to come.

03:38July 10th brought with it another series of strikes that have

03:42utterly ruined Shadow Fleet ships that are technically not supposed to exist.

03:46July 10th saw another escalation, as Ukraine's drones struck 13 Shadow Fleet ships.

03:53As a little bonus, those drones also headed into the Crimean mainland,

03:57where they disabled five electrical substations that Russia needs to keep power flowing through the peninsula.

04:02Every substation that goes down forces blackouts and diversions.

04:06But the headline here is the ships.

04:09Ten oil tankers, a ferry, a bulk carrier, and a marine tugboat were struck by Ukraine's drones.

04:15By this point, it had become clear that Ukraine has planned a coordinated assault

04:19that is multi-layered and brilliant.

04:21The Sea of Azov has become a death zone for any ship that dares sail it.

04:26During the same 24 hours of the July 10th Azov strikes,

04:29Ukraine's drones also hit 1,660 other enemy targets and eliminated 426 soldiers.

04:38All of this builds on a campaign targeting the roads, bridges, and highways that feed into Crimea,

04:43a campaign which has forced Russia to cut on-land military cargo traffic by 71%, according to Brovdy.

04:51Bewildered and befuddled, Russia's occupiers must have been hoping or practically begging for the firestorm to stop.

04:59It didn't.

05:00Ukraine still had the big one up its sleeve.

05:02On July 11th, another series of overnight strikes claimed 21 Russian oil tankers in the Sea of Azov region,

05:09along with a pair of dry cargo vessels, four tugboats, and a specialized vessel.

05:14Their shadow tanker fleet is noticeably shrinking, Brovdy said mockingly in his telegram report.

05:20We mean, of course it is.

05:22Dozens of ships are being hit by drones.

05:24Vessels that lurk in the shadows have been exposed and are now on fire.

05:28The July 11th firestorm now stands as the single largest maritime drone operation that Ukraine has pulled off,

05:35United24 media reports.

05:37And just as another bonus, Ukraine also kindly took out 53 other military targets across Crimea,

05:44as 21 tankers and several other Shadow Fleet vessels burned in the Sea of Azov.

05:49Ukraine has found the Crimean off switch, and it's just flicked that switch.

05:53How could it get any worse?

05:55Putin's Kremlin cronies must have been thinking as they watched the flames spread on their Shadow Fleet ships.

06:00Ukraine had the answer on July 12th.

06:03That's right, another night of Shadow Fleet strikes.

06:06This time, the count was a little smaller than we saw on July 7th.

06:10According to the Kiev Independent, only 14 Shadow Fleet vessels went down, including 10 oil tankers and 4 ferries.

06:19Brovdy says these strikes capped a week when Ukraine struck a Russian vessel in the Sea of Azov every 112

06:24minutes.

06:25We would say that Russia could finally breathe.

06:28We'd probably be wrong about that.

06:30We're writing this script on July 13th,

06:32and we'd be willing to bet good money that there will be even more strike reports tomorrow,

06:36and the next day, and the next.

06:38This is a non-stop campaign of Crimean isolation and Shadow Fleet shattering,

06:43and we don't even have to just take Ukraine's word for what's happening.

06:46There is evidence beyond Brovdy's telegram declarations.

06:50That's NASA's FIRM's satellites, which track active fires and hotspots,

06:54have been highlighting fires all over the Sea of Azov over the last few days.

06:58We know what those fires are.

07:00They're burning Shadow Fleet ships that have been struck by drones.

07:04The world makes a big deal about Iran closing off the Strait of Hormuz, and rightfully so,

07:08but what we've seen this July is Ukraine unleashing drone strikes

07:12that go far beyond anything that Iran has been able to pull off.

07:15The Kerch Strait has become a no-go zone for Russian shipping.

07:19The Shadow Fleet is being shrunk,

07:22and every one of the ships that Ukraine is targeting

07:24is in a very specific location that links to Ukraine's overall strategy of isolating Crimea.

07:30The Sea of Azov is connected to the Black Sea via the Kerch Strait,

07:34over which the bridge that we mentioned earlier is located.

07:36The ships that Ukraine has been hitting transport oil, grain, supplies, and more

07:41through the Kerch Strait into the Black Sea,

07:43and then on to Crimea or the Ukrainian mainland, or vice versa.

07:47Ships move through the Sea of Azov to get into international waters too.

07:51What Ukraine is essentially doing here is creating a blockade,

07:54similar to the one that we see in the Strait of Hormuz,

07:57only it's far more explosive.

07:59And that blockade is having an impact.

08:01Russia has been forced into making a move that it never wanted to make.

08:05But before we reveal what that move is,

08:07this is a reminder that you are watching The Military Show.

08:10There's a lot more where this comes from,

08:12so make sure you hit subscribe if you're getting value from our channel.

08:15So, the big move.

08:17Russia has been forced to stop shipping through the Don Azov channel,

08:21which links the Don River through the Sea of Azov.

08:23That's bad for Russia.

08:24The country is one of the largest exporters of grain in the world,

08:28and a quarter of what it sells flows through this very channel.

08:32Russia's FSB has announced that no requests for passage through the Kerch Strait

08:36would be accepted from 1810 local time on July 10th.

08:40There is no indication of when this halt to shipping will be lifted.

08:44If we had to guess,

08:45it'll probably be when Ukraine's drones aren't tearing through

08:48Shadow Fleet ships in the Sea of Azov.

08:50There doesn't seem to be much chance of that happening anytime soon.

08:54More Shadow Fleet ships are going to burn.

08:56There are three things that Ukraine's Sea of Azov campaign tells us,

09:01and none of them are good for Russia as it stands by helplessly

09:03while more and more of its Shadow Fleet ships are damaged and sunk.

09:07The first is what we just mentioned.

09:09Russia seems incapable of doing anything about what Ukraine is doing.

09:13It's become abundantly clear that Ukraine isn't conducting

09:16isolated strikes against the Shadow Fleet.

09:18This is a coordinated and multi-day campaign

09:21that seems designed to wipe the Shadow Fleet

09:24out of the Sea of Azov altogether.

09:26Ukraine's drones are coming from multiple directions,

09:29which indicates that Ukraine has achieved air superiority over the Sea of Azov.

09:33It's also clear that Russia isn't using military ships

09:36to escort its Shadow Fleet ships through this waterway.

09:39Those ships might have contained the air defenses needed to shoot Ukraine's drones down,

09:43but they clearly aren't there.

09:45That probably has something to do with Ukraine having already destroyed

09:48at least a third of the Black Sea fleet

09:50that might have been able to offer protection,

09:52showing us yet another layer to Ukraine's strategy.

09:56First, the warships, then the Shadow Fleet tankers.

09:59And to cap it all off,

10:01it also seems like Russia has no early warning aircraft

10:04operating over the Sea of Azov or the Kerch Strait.

10:07There has been no indication that Russia is engaging Ukraine's drones in any meaningful way,

10:12which would suggest a lack of the early warning systems

10:15that would let whatever air defenses Russia has in the coastal regions around the Sea of Azov

10:19know that a drone attack is coming.

10:21Russia is completely incapable of stopping Ukraine from doing what it's doing.

10:26A week's worth of daily strikes proves that.

10:30Russia's naval weakness in the waters that surround Crimea has been exposed here.

10:34But as much as that fact will have Putin and his people panicking,

10:37there's the second aspect to all of this that showcases a complete transformation

10:41in how Ukraine is approaching its naval campaign against Russia.

10:45Something has changed.

10:47A campaign that once focused on warships has evolved.

10:51For anybody who has been paying attention,

10:53this is a natural progression that Russia should have seen coming.

10:56We already mentioned Ukraine's massive success rate against the Black Sea fleet.

11:01The warships that Ukraine has already taken out of commission can't be replaced.

11:06Turkey has made sure of that.

11:08It has blocked warship traffic through both the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits,

11:12which both feed into the Black Sea and Turkey controls under the Montreux Convention.

11:17Every time Russia loses a Black Sea fleet ship,

11:20it loses a massive portion of the naval power that Putin needs to project in the Crimean region.

11:25The result of all of this is that the Black Sea fleet has become functionally useless

11:29for many of the purposes that it's intended to serve.

11:32We see that in the lack of military escorts for the Shadow Fleet ships that we mentioned.

11:36On June 26, UA.News reported that the fleet isn't just failing to escort ships.

11:42It has essentially disappeared from radar altogether.

11:46By the time of the report,

11:48none of Russia's warships have been detected in the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov.

11:52That isn't because Russia hasn't come up with some miraculous new camouflage

11:56that hides those ships from radars.

11:58It's due to the ships simply not being there.

12:01Russia is too scared to use its warships

12:03in the very seas that those warships are supposed to dominate

12:06because it knows that Ukraine's drones and missiles are always waiting to strike.

12:11Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky knows how badly Russia has failed.

12:15Russia has lost the Black Sea, Zelensky declared on July 5th.

12:20Uncoincidentally, it was right around this time

12:22that Ukraine's drones started to attack the Shadow Fleet vessels

12:25that we're seeing getting struck in their dozens in the Sea of Azov.

12:28Ukraine's campaign in the waters around Crimea has evolved,

12:31with the Black Sea fleet no longer a factor.

12:34Ukraine is free to focus its drones on Shadow Fleet vessels that are unguarded.

12:38That evolution may also be a response to something

12:41that Russia had been trying to pull in the Sea of Azov

12:43just ahead of Ukraine's attacks.

12:45The Kyiv Post reports that starboard maritime intelligence data

12:48indicated a 55% decline

12:51in vessels using the active automatic identification system

12:55in the Sea of Azov between June 30th and July 11th.

12:58That system allows for the identification of ships by all parties

13:02and Shadow Fleet vessels turn it off to ensure that they can't be tracked.

13:07In short, Russia was making the Sea of Azov a haven for its Shadow Fleet.

13:11Ukraine has put a stop to that.

13:13And in doing so, it's shown us the third thing

13:16that Ukraine's Sea of Azov campaign tells us.

13:18The campaign to isolate Crimea has been escalated,

13:22as a new phase of cutting off Russian supply routes has been started.

13:26We've seen this isolation strategy in action for a few months now.

13:30It started with the roads, bridges, and vehicles

13:32that Russia relied on to transport fuel and supplies into Crimea via land.

13:37The R-280 highway, which links Russia, occupied southern Ukraine, and Crimea,

13:42became a target as early as April,

13:44as Ukraine's mid-strike drones made their mark

13:47in the form of leaving hundreds of burned husks of supply vehicles all over the road.

13:52Since then, Ukraine has carried out multiple strikes

13:55against bridges in the occupied territories

13:57that feed into the overland routes Russia relies on

14:00to keep Crimea stocked with fuel and supplies.

14:03The result has been a massive fuel shortage that racks the peninsula

14:06and forces people to queue for hours

14:09just to get a small portion of rationed fuel.

14:12There are also strikes inside Crimea,

14:15such as the attacks on power substations that we mentioned earlier.

14:18The goal is to make life in Crimea hell for Russia's occupiers

14:22without resorting to the war crime of attacking those occupiers directly.

14:26Ukraine wants those occupiers to run,

14:29to evacuate Crimea by the Kerch bridge that Ukraine purposefully leaves standing,

14:34as this exodus will be a huge blow to Putin's claims

14:37that he is Russia's great protector.

14:39Ukraine's on-land strikes had already caused a fuel shortage on the peninsula.

14:44Now Ukraine is attacking Shadow Fleet fuel and oil tankers

14:47that would have been sailing into Crimea in an attempt to alleviate that crisis.

14:52Bear in mind that all of this is happening as Ukraine maintains its campaign

14:55of attacking Russian oil refining,

14:58which RBC Ukraine says shut down as much as 40% of Russia's refining capacity,

15:03which feeds into a fuel crisis that has expanded across the Russian mainland

15:07and currently affects about 50 million people.

15:10There is no overstating how humiliating this is for Putin.

15:14He has positioned Crimea as the Russian Riviera,

15:17the go-to destination for tourists all over Russia

15:20and a symbol of the power that Russia supposedly holds over Ukraine.

15:24But that Riviera has become a battlefield.

15:26Any tourist who dares head into Crimea will encounter fuel shortages,

15:31deal with constant power cuts,

15:33and may even be able to look out from the coast

15:35and see the burning ships in the Sea of Azov.

15:37They'll hear the non-stop blare of air raid sirens

15:40and will be frightened by the explosions in the night

15:43as yet more Ukrainian drones touch down on the peninsula

15:46that Putin can no longer defend.

15:48This is a classic blockade, conducted in a brand new way.

15:52Ukraine doesn't need warships in the waters or checkpoints on land

15:56to stop Russian logistics from serving Crimea.

15:58It just needs drones, hundreds of them,

16:01attacking everything that keeps Crimea alive.

16:04And with this brilliant strategy,

16:06Ukraine has made the impossible possible.

16:08The liberation of Crimea,

16:10which nobody could have ever anticipated happening back in 2014

16:14when Russia illegally annexed the peninsula,

16:16is now underway.

16:17Now, Russia faces some critical months ahead

16:20As Crimea is being isolated,

16:22preparations are being made in Ukraine's south,

16:25especially for the occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia,

16:28UNN reports.

16:29Ukraine needs to liberate those regions

16:31if it's to pull off any large-scale amphibious operation

16:34to retake Crimea.

16:36The isolation strategy feeds into this.

16:39Right now, there are 125,000 troops

16:42in Russia's southern military grouping.

16:44They all need fuel, ammo, and equipment.

16:46And the logistical routes Ukraine is striking

16:48are what provides those essentials.

16:51These 125,000 soldiers are being cut off

16:54just like the Crimean occupiers.

16:56Slowly but surely, every domino is falling.

16:58And when Ukraine has completed its work,

17:00the conditions will be perfect

17:02for the Crimean liberation that nobody saw coming.

17:05Dozens of Shadow Fleet ships burning in the Sea of Azov

17:07aren't the endgame.

17:09It's another step in a brilliant campaign

17:11that Putin is powerless to stop.

17:12But as that campaign continues,

17:15there are 1.5 million Russian occupiers in Crimea

17:18who are experiencing the most profound regret possible.

17:21They never should have moved to the peninsula.

17:24Ukraine just showed them why,

17:25and it's been showing them for months.

17:27About a month before the shattering

17:29of the Shadow Fleet in the Sea of Azov,

17:31Ukraine also destroyed the single most important bridge

17:34in Russia's Crimean supply network.

17:36You can find out all about what happened

17:38by watching our video.

17:38And if you enjoyed this video,

17:40hit subscribe and ring the notification bell

17:43to keep up with the military show

17:44and our tracking of Putin's Crimean catastrophe.

17:47And thank you, as always, for watching.

Russia’s Secret Fleet “Didn’t Exist”… Then Ukraine ANNIHILATED It

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