MOSCOW, July 18 -- Three dry cargo ships carrying military supplies for Ukrainian forces were struck across two Odesa-region port facilities on Saturday, and a Neptune coastal anti-ship missile launcher was destroyed in the Mykolaiv region, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a series of statements that Ukraine had not publicly confirmed by Saturday evening.

The operations, as described by Moscow, represent one of the more concentrated single-day port assault sequences Russia has declared in recent weeks. Ukraine has used the Black Sea port infrastructure around Odesa, particularly the Yuzhnyi terminal to the east of the city, as a critical node in the flow of Western-supplied equipment, fuel, and ammunition to frontline units in the so...