Russian chemical tanker reportedly hit by Ukraine drones in Kerch Strait

A Russian tanker was hit by Ukrainian drones in the Kerch Strait a day after Kyiv said it had carried out a seaborne drone strike on a navy ship, according to reports in the Russian media.

The tanker was damaged in the attack and two tugboats were at the scene to assist it, the state-run Tass news agency said, citing the Maritime Rescue Centre. The reported attack briefly halted traffic on the Kerch Bridge, the strategic highway linking Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland, according to The Guardian.

Explosions were heard near the bridge early on August 5, Russian-appointed officials said, adding that the blasts were linked to the attack on the tanker. No fuel had been spilled from the ship, which had 11 people on board, Tass said.

Ukraine, which rarely comments on attacks on Russian targets, made no official statement on the incident.

The Moscow Times identified the vessel as the chemical tanker SIG, which is under US sanctions for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria supporting the president, Bashar al-Assad.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, said several members of the ship’s crew were injured by broken glass in the attack.

“The detonation due to the explosion on the ship was visible from the peninsula, which the local residents thought was an explosion in the vicinity of Yakovenkovo settlement not far from the Crimean Bridge,” Rogov wrote on Telegram.

Traffic on the Kerch Bridge was halted for about three hours and resumed early on August 5, according to the highways information centre’s Telegram channel.

The latest attack in the Black Sea came a day after Ukraine said it had carried out a seaborne drone strike on a Russian warship at Novorossiysk naval base in southern Russia. Russia said on Friday it had repelled an attempted attack on the base by the Ukrainian armed forces “with the use of two unmanned sea boats”.

The number of attacks in the Black Sea by both sides has increased since Moscow exited a deal last month that had allowed Ukrainian grain exports via the shipping hub during the conflict between the two countries.

The bridge, completed by Russia in 2018, four years after Moscow annexed the peninsula from Ukraine, has been subjected to two major attacks in the 17-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the most recent one occurring last month.