The 7 August strike on the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan’s (SOCAR) storage facility in Ukraine’s Odessa region is more than an isolated act of wartime vandalism. It represents a calculated escalation by Moscow, striking not merely at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure but at a foreign commercial asset with geopolitical resonance. Carried out with Iranian-supplied Shahed drones, the attack underscores the deepening strategic convergence between Russia and Iran, a partnership increasingly weaponised to disrupt regional energy flows.

Moreover, the damage—severe enough to ignite a large-scale fire and rupture a diesel pipeline—injured four Azerbaijani employees and momentarily disrupted SOCAR’s operations. Yet beyond the immediate human and material toll lies a more complex message: that Russia is willing to target Azerbaijani-linked assets abroad when it suits its wider objectives, even at the risk of provoking diplomatic friction with Baku. The incident, swiftly contained by Ukrainian emergency services, raises pressing questions about the security of foreign energy investments in active conflict zones and the vulnerability of critical supply chains to hybrid warfare tactics.

Furthermore, this attack is far from an isolated event. It occurred just hours after a historic trilateral summit at the White House, where Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a peace treaty........

© AzerNews