Strikes at sea and shore, 4 March 2026

What did the days leading up to 4 March 2026 show about the reach of the war? Two Ukrainian strikes and one announcement in Paris offer a partial answer.

On 2 March, Ukrainian drones struck an oil terminal in the Russian port city of Novorossiysk, in Krasnodar Krai. Four residential buildings in the area were reportedly damaged in the attack.

On 3 March, the Russian liquefied natural gas tanker Arctic Metagaz caught fire in the Mediterranean Sea after being struck by a Ukrainian naval drone. The incident took the fighting well beyond the Black Sea coast and into a distant body of water.

A signal from Paris

Also on 2 March, French president Emmanuel Macron announced that France would increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons for the first time in decades. He cited global threats, including Russia's war on Ukraine, China's growing military power in Asia and changing U.S. defence priorities.

Taken together, these events show a war affecting energy infrastructure on Russian soil, shipping far from Ukraine's borders and the security calculations of a major European power. For readers looking back, 4 March 2026 sits within that sequence.