Ukraine’s security service claims that Ukrainian naval forces are behind the drone attacks on tankers in the Black Sea. Tankers transporting Russian oil are reportedly seriously damaged.
Behind the attacks on two tankers of the Russian so-called shadow fleet in the Black Sea is located in Ukraine, an unnamed official of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Saturday. According to him, the vessels were hit by naval drones, reports TASR according to the Reuters and AFP agencies.
The tankers Virat and Kairos, which are under sanctions for carrying Russian oil, were rocked by explosions Friday afternoon and evening off the coast of Turkey, the Turkish Transport Ministry said. According to him, the tankers were not carrying cargo and one of them, Virat, was hit by another explosion on Saturday as well.
An SBU official said on condition of anonymity that the Sea Baby naval drone operation was carried out by Ukrainian counter-intelligence together with the naval forces. “The video shows that both tankers were critically damaged and effectively disabled after the strike. This will deal a significant blow to the transportation of Russian oil,” he said, without specifying the time of the attack.
The crew was not injured
On Friday evening, Turkey’s transport ministry said two tankers reported explosions in Turkish waters, but there were no casualties among crew members. The cause of the explosion was not clear, but according to the first reports, they may have hit mines or been hit by missiles or a drone.
The Turkish ministry has already directly attributed Saturday’s explosion on the tanker Virat to an unmanned maritime drone, saying that none of the 20 crew members were injured. All 25 crew members were safely evacuated from the Kairos tanker heading from Egypt to the Russian port of Novorossiysk after an explosion and fire, the Turkish ministry said on Friday.
Both tankers sail under the flag of Gambia and are on the list of ships subject to Western sanctions for transporting oil from Russian ports in violation of the embargo imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, AFP wrote.
