Russia Promises On-Time Start to Tourist Season in Seaside Region Pounded by Ukrainian Drones

The messaging from Kremlin-controlled media is that a summer vacation in the Black Sea port city of Tuapse – hit five times by Ukrainian kamikaze drones in the past 40 days – is an excellent idea. Make us preferred on Google Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied This photograph shows an oil spill in the river following a recent drone attack on the Tuapse oil refinery in Tuapse, Krasnodar region on April 29, 2026, amid the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict. (Photo by AFP) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google Oil spills, soiled beaches and wildlife killed by pollution, buildings and cars covered by soot from the black rain caused by a burning refinery: none of this will prevent seaside resorts in the Black Sea port of Tuapse from opening on time, Russian state-run media said on Wednesday. Reports published by the official news agency TASS and the country’s biggest tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, among other government-controlled platforms, painted a picture of calm and stability soon returning to the city, advanced the narrative that repeated Ukrainian drone strikes were pin-pricks, and suggested tourists should visit and enjoy a nice summer vacation at a Tuapse resort. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . Independent Russian media, in contrast, reported the city of 60,000 visited by 500,000 to 800,000 tourists during the summer season, in peacetime, is at the epicenter of one of the worst ecological disasters seen in the region in decades, and questioned whether the most recent Ukrainian attack – May 1-2 – was the last. Ukrainian long-range drones hit Tuapse’s oil refinery and fuel storage facilities four times in April prior to that strike, with Russian air defenses seemingly weakening with each attack. Breached reservoirs released potentially hundreds of tons of petroleum products into adjacent wetlands and the sea, as local residents took shelter inside homes from smoke and soot from fires. In the latter half of April the refinery burned for two weeks. Other Topics of Interest Zelensky Accuses Russia of Violating Ceasefire, Signals Possible ‘Mirror Response’ During Moscow Parade Zelensky said he would determine Ukraine’s next steps after receiving evening reports from the military and intelligence services. Russian government media has told voters the attacks were superficial and insisted, repeatedly, that authorities have the situation under control. A Tuesday evening RIA Novosti news agency report informed a nationwide audience that crews are clearing up beaches of “local emissions of petroleum products… and that work has been completed on beaches by the villages Novomikhailovskiy, Yuzhny and Vesna. There workers have completed clean-up and even transported contaminated soil and sand to a safe place. In the village Nebug the clean-up is complete but at this time the collected contaminated soil is in bags that are still being moved to another location.” Komsomolskaya Pravda, a state-controlled tabloid daily with a reported 3.5 million subscribers, in an article headlined “Please Write That Everything Is Fine in Tuapse!: How the Resort Is Recovering From Drone Attacks,” in a 1,500-word feature used neither the word “war” nor the Russian politically correct term “Special Military Operation” in fresh coverage profiling Tuapse as an excellent tourist destination. The upbeat Wednesday feature, filed by veteran special correspondent Natalia Varsegova, said in part: “The whole world is cleaning up Tuapse… Locals and volunteers are carefully cleaning oil stains from the grounds of children’s institutions… and beaches.” “The center is clean. From my observations, the two most problematic streets are Koshkina and Pushkina, which are near the oil refinery, but that’s understandable,” Varsegova told readers. “I confirm… with each passing day, traces of enemy raids in the city are dwindling.” The article praised Tuapse residents for “voluntarily” putting out fires, donating food and clothes, sheltering people made homeless, scrubbing “parks, squares, monuments, kindergartens, and the sports school swimming pool” in the wake of four Ukrainian drone strikes on the city oil refinery. “The city is getting cleaner… Emergency services and oil workers continue to clean the shoreline around the clock… volunteers, armed with brushes and chemicals, will continue cleaning kindergartens, so that the ringing voices and laughter of preschoolers can soon be heard there again,” Varsegova concluded. In Russia, tourist industry advertising, notwithstanding comforting reporting like Varsegova’s, has in some cases already modified its pitch to potential Tuapse visitors, who typically are middle- and lower-income families coming to stay in budget accommodations for seaside vacations. “Tuapse is often criticized for the fact that it is a port city, which means that the sea here is not completely clean,” conceded the national Russian tourism company Tonkosti Turizma in freshly updated marketing. “But at the same time, this is unfairly silent about the advantages, of which the resort region has many…Tuapse is simply made for a vacation with the whole family!” That and other new Russian Black Sea summer holiday content reviewed by Kyiv Post advised prospective vacationers to consider package stays at a Krasnodar region mountain spa well inland, for the fresh air and heated swimming pools. But independent Russia journalists have reported a different story from the ground. Anastasia Troyanova, writing for the ecology-themed information platform Kedr.media, in a thorough May 5 report pulled no punches about the scale of the oil spills and the damage to wetlands and wildlife, both from recent Ukrainian drone strikes and the hulks of a pair of shadow fleet tankers sunk off shore by Ukrainian naval forces in 2025 and still leaking globs of fuel oil into the sea and on local beaches. “Dead dolphins are lying on beaches… After the drone attacks, the oil storage tanks resemble opened and charred tin cans. Near the Red Square shopping center, where Rosneft’s infrastructure and office are located, the soles of your shoes stick to the asphalt, so saturated is it with a mixture of soot and oil… Loudspeakers are warning residents of a 500,000 ruble fine for anyone caught filming the aftermath,” the report said in part. In interviews with local residents and first responders Troyanova catalogued eyewitness testimony by Tuapse residents about living in city selected by Kyiv as a prime target for Ukraine’s campaign to demolish energy infrastructure in Russia: explosions rattling windows, panic, non-existent bomb shelters, thick black clouds of smoke, omnipresent smell of burning, headaches, sore throats and coughs, fainting, cars covered “with specks of black rain,” soot-covered asphalt, police patrols interrogating strangers, and being forced to choose between staying inside with windows closed in lovely warm weather or going outside but wearing a protective mask. Worst of all, she wrote, is local authorities’ covering it all up. “Tuapse has been living in an environmental disaster for three weeks now: the air is saturated with smoke, and the beaches are drenched in oil products. Meanwhile, Rospotrebnadzor (the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing) is saying there is no threat to residents’ health,” the article said in part. The kedr.media and other reports have documented that most of the volunteers participating in clean-up work are young women. A Tuesday report by the Zhemchuzhaya Reabilitatsionniy Tsentr, a Tuapse-based wildlife protection group, said that its workers had cleaned by hand hundreds of sea birds soiled by oil, and called for more volunteers because of massive oil slicks and soiled beaches up and down the coast. An April 27 report by the sometimes Moscow-critical Kommersant magazine estimated the size of the oil slick at 77 square kilometers (30 square miles) and stated directly “The Tuapse region seaside cannot be cleaned up by the start of the summer season.” But on major Russian state media, the message is the opposite. In a nationally televised interview with top Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, on Tuesday evening, Tuapse Mayor Sergei Boyko told viewers Tuapse would be ready for the summer vacation season, absolutely. “Of course, the season will happen. Our district’s coastline is about 90 kilometers [56 miles] long. What happened on one beach will have no effect on the other beaches. And we will get this beach in order by June 1, and people who come specifically to our city will be able to use it,” Boyko promised. He did not mention any drones. Stefan Korshak is the Kyiv Post Senior Defense Correspondent. He is from Houston Texas, is a Yalie and since the mid-1990s has worked as correspondent/photographer for newswire, newspapers, television and radio. He has reported from five wars but most enjoys doing articles on wildlife and nature. You can read his weekly blog on the Russo-Ukraine War on Facebook, Substack and Medium. His new book on the 2022 Siege of Mariupol is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US .