Battle at sea intensifies: Drone hits 2nd Russian ship in two days
A Ukrainian maritime drone packed with explosives rammed into a Russian oil tanker early Saturday off the eastern coast of occupied Crimea, Russian officials and a Ukrainian official said, the second strike on a Russian ship at sea in two days.
That attack coincided with a new directive from Ukraine’s maritime authority, dated Friday, warning that six Russian Black Sea ports and the approaches to them would be considered “war risk” areas until further notice. The notice expanded on a less specific warning last month that any vessels sailing to ports in Russia or occupied Ukraine would be considered military targets.
Taken together, the tanker attack — which occurred in the Kerch Strait near a critical bridge connecting Russia and the Crimean Peninsula — and the new directive have ratcheted up the threat of expanded violence in the Black Sea. Tensions had been stoked by Russia’s decision last month to withdraw from a deal allowing Ukrainian grain exports and to degrade Ukraine’s shipping capacity by striking its port infrastructure.
The moves fit into Ukraine’s newly emboldened strategy of taking the war into Russian territory, as enunciated recently by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. It was, “inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair,” he said, that the war “is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases.”
This past week, Ukrainian drones hit a Moscow skyscraper twice within 24 hours, and another sea drone damaged a Russian warship at Russia’s largest port on the Black Sea, for the first time directly threatening its oil exports.
Russian maritime authorities said the engine room of the oil tanker was damaged in Saturday’s strike but that the ship remained afloat. There was no oil spillage, and no crew members were injured, the authorities said in a statement on the social messaging service Telegram. According to ship tracking data from Pole Star, which follows marine traffic, and a photo verified by the Times, no casualties were reported.
Vasyl Malyuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said in a statement Saturday that Ukraine was responsible for the recent attacks on the Russian ships, calling them a “logical” and “effective” tactic — without specifically mentioning the strike on the oil tanker.
His remarks came a day after Ukrainian forces hit a large Russian landing ship in the Russian port of Novorossiysk, a key naval and shipping hub on the shore of the Black Sea.
Britain’s Defense Intelligence Agency said in a statement that the Novorossiysk strike had “seriously damaged” the 370-foot-long landing ship, the Olenegorsky Gornyak, dealing a “significant blow” to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.