MOSCOW: Russia said it would punish Ukraine for using a sea drone to attack a civilian tanker near the Kerch Strait, calling it a “terrorist act” that threatened the lives of the crew and risked “a large-scale environmental disaster”.
Both sides said that a Ukrainian sea drone full of explosives had struck a Russian fuel tanker overnight near a bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea, the second such attack in 24 hours.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow would retaliate. “The Kyiv regime, meeting no condemnation from Western countries and international organisations, is actively applying new terrorist methods, this time in the waters of the Black Sea,” Zakharova said in a statement.
“There can be no justification for such barbaric actions, they will not go unanswered and their authors and perpetrators will inevitably be punished.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested Moscow would launch more strikes against Ukrainian ports in response to Kyiv’s attacks on Russian ships in the Black Sea and threatened to hand Ukraine “an ecological catastrophe”.
Ukrainian sea drone full of explosives struck a Russian fuel tanker overnight near a bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea, the second such attack in 24 hours.
The drone with 450 kg of explosives hit the SIG vessel as it transported fuel for the Russian military in Ukrainian territorial waters. No one was hurt, but the Crimean Bridge and ferry transport were suspended for several hours.
Kyiv says destroying Russia’s military infrastructure inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine is crucial to its counteroffensive after the February 2022 invasion.
Another sea drone attack on Russia’s navy base at Novorossiysk damaged a warship on Friday, the first time the Ukrainian navy had projected its power so far from its shores.
And a Ukrainian government agency warned on Saturday that six Russian Black Sea ports – Anapa, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi, and Taman – were in “war risk area”.
Moscow has bombed Ukrainian ports since its withdrawal last month from a UN-brokered deal to let Ukraine export grain. The SIG tanker had been supplying oil to Russian troops in Syria.
The United States imposed sanctions on the tanker and its owner, St. Petersburg-based Transpetrochart, in 2019 for helping provide jet fuel in Syria.
The Moscow-installed authorities in Crimea said the bridge, which was completed by Russia in 2018 and has come under serious attack twice in the war, was not targeted.
