Drone Attacks Hit Sochi and Other Black Sea Resorts, Hurting Tourism

Gavriil Grigorov / via REUTERS Vladimir Putin’s war has come to his favorite vacation resort in explosive fashion.

Sochi, a Black Sea city, is known for its beach resort, which before the war was crawling with domestic tourists.

It was a favorite of the Kremlin dictator, who frequented the city before his “special military operation” kicked off in February 2022.

Now, he appears to have deserted it as drones whizz overhead.

Indeed, the whole Black Sea coast has been battered by a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

It has been targeted because of its strategic importance, as it hosts vital oil processing and export hubs.

This means the formerly pristine waters are laden with fuel, and the beaches, once packed with tourists, look sparse.

Dmitry Bogdanov, chair of AMOS, a hoteliers’ association, said numbers are down almost 11 percent year on year.

Putin was a regular visitor to the region before the war, visiting 24 times in 2021.

But according to the Kremlin, he visited only twice in 2024 and twice in 2025.

He has a Soviet-era official summer residence in Sochi and a palace in Gelendzhik, around 100 miles north as the crow flies.

However, he hasn’t appeared publicly in Sochi since October and appears to prefer his Lake Valdai bolthole in northern Russia.

A tourist boat captain in Arkhipo-Osipovka told the Financial Times that air raid sirens sound nonstop.

Arkhipo-Osipovka, near Putin’s Gelendzhik palace, was the site of a deadly Ukrainian strike earlier this month.