Scores of Russian ships blitzed off Crimea as Ukraine begins amphibious assault of occupied land

We're starting with what's happening in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, where Ukraine continues its successful campaign of targeting Russian vessels.

Mainly Russian tankers, but Russian warships as well.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, which has been tallying the counts, at least 136 vessels have been hit since July 6th.

And overnight, uh, the Magyar Drones, one of Ukraine's most famous, well-known drone units, claims another 20 vessels have been struck using a combination of air drones and sea babies.

And Ukraine's navy has also said that an FSB border guard ship was sunk near Novorossiysk, and that is the far eastern edge of the Black Sea where Russia's Black Sea Fleet was forced to retreat when the Port of Sebastopol in Crimea became simply untenable because of Ukraine's successful attacks.

That is in parallel to the ongoing campaign that we've talked about before to target Russia's oil, energy, and weapons infrastructure.

This week, the strikes appear to have been targeted more at oil and gas infrastructure.

The most notable being a strike on the Salavat oil refinery that's responsible for about 7.2 million tons of crude oil, refining that oil a year.

That's about 2.7% of Russia's total capacity.

It is a major refinery, not the largest.

Those have also been hit in the past.

Also, Russia's Afipsky refinery in Krasnodar Krai at the eastern edge of the Black Sea, has also been hit.

The Moscow Times reporting that the combination of these strikes has had an effect on Gazprom's share price, plummeting 5% to just under 84 rubles, which is a record low.

Comes as well, there's been a hit on a thermal heating plant in Sebastopol, so that's less about the oil infrastructure, less about trying to cripple the Russian economy or hamstring the Russian economy and therefore choke the supply of rubles into Moscow's war chest.

Hitting that thermal power and heating plant is about making life more difficult, m- most likely, for the people, the occupying forces and people left in occupied Crimea, particularly when winter comes.

And you'll recognize that that is echoing, uh, a campaign that Va- Vladimir Putin very much started by trying to hit Ukraine's civilian infrastructure for almost every year of this war.

Uh, there's also appears to have been an attempted Ukrainian drone strike at Yaroslavl.

That's about 250 kilometers east beyond Moscow from Ukrainian territory.

M- Russian officials last night saying that they intercepted some 375 Ukrainian drones, which is interesting because it makes Ukraine's strike last night, if that's true, larger than the reported, uh, Russian strike in reverse.

We should remember that only about 5 to 15% of Ukrainian drones are successful.

That's according to, uh, defense sources I've spoken to in this country.

Uh, of those 375, we understand that some 200, according to the mayor of Moscow, were fired over or around the Russian capital.