Ukraine is bombing Russian gas rigs in the Black Sea

By David Axe

The Ukrainian Navy struck a Russian gas rig in the Black Sea in June. The attack took place on the night of June 26 and damaged the “Tavrida”, a jack-up platform that Russian forces had seized in 2014 – during the initial phase of the Crimean war – by seizing it from a Ukrainian company.

The attack on “Tavrida” is part of the wider Ukrainian operation aimed at expelling Russian forces from the western part of the Black Sea.

A jack-up rig is a self-powered floating drilling rig that lowers its telescopic columns to the bottom once it is over a gas or oil field. With relatively short – for a drilling rig – drill strings, since their height does not exceed a few hundred feet, jack-up platforms usually drill offshore.

Indeed, the Tavrida was reportedly about 70 miles south of Odesa when the Ukrainians hit it with a Neptune anti-ship missile, as confirmed by video released Monday by the Southern Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The hybrid-built Neptune – combining an anti-aircraft missile thruster, a turbo engine for navigation, a radar seeker and a 330kg warhead – can engage a target at a distance of 60 miles. The Ukrainian Navy was still testing the Neptune multiple missile launcher when Russian military forces invaded Ukraine in late February.

Apparently that particular launcher “survived”, and it – or another launcher assembled by Kiev engineers – entered the fray on April 13, when two Neptunes struck and sank the Moskva: the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The Ukrainian fleet, which no longer has a single major surface warship, has expanded its missile arsenal with new and used launchers for the Harpoon anti-ship missiles sent to it by the United States and Denmark.

However, it was a Neptune that hit Tavrida on June 26, leaving behind a huge hole in the platform’s helipad. At the time of the attack, it appears that there were no people on the platform.

Clearer video of the strike pic.twitter.com/a5c64goylp

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) July 11, 2022

In essence, this strike completed the first attempt by the Ukrainians to blow up “Tavrida” on June 20, as part of a wider raid targeting two more natural gas rigs.

The tally is one damaged platform and two damaged rigs. Several of the roughly 100 people on the other two platforms were either injured or remain missing, according to Russian state media.

Crews then evacuated the rigs and Chernomorneftegaz, the Crimea-based oil and gas company that operates the platforms, suspended operations. Just as Moscow is waging a form of economic warfare by seizing farmland in Ukraine and blocking ships carrying Ukrainian grain, Kyiv is retaliating by preventing Russia from extracting natural gas from the Black Sea.

Reports said the Russian military had installed Neva radar and cameras on the Tavrida, turning it into an offshore observation platform capable of spying on ships departing from Odessa.

In this light, “Tavrida” was a legitimate military – in addition to economic – target. Since April, Ukrainian forces have launched a counter-offensive against the Russians in the maritime area between Odessa and Fidonisi, within an 80-mile radius.

The Ukrainians not only sank the Moskva, but destroyed or damaged – with missiles, drones and artillery shells – several support ships, as well as amphibious or patrol boats, and on June 30 they managed to expel the Russian invaders from Fidonisi.

By gradually pushing Russian ships towards Crimea, the Ukrainian Navy has created a security zone – albeit a fragile one – in the westernmost part of the Black Sea. More cargo ships are now flocking to Ukrainian ports on the Danube River near Romania, just 20 miles inland from the Black Sea, to load grain.