Russia vows to punish Ukraine for attack on civilian tanker near Crimea bridge

MOSCOW - Russia said on Saturday that it would punish Ukraine for using

a sea drone to attack a civilian tanker

near the Kerch Strait, in what it said was a “terrorist act” that threatened the lives of the crew and risked “a large-scale environmental disaster”.

Both sides said on Saturday that a Ukrainian sea drone full of explosives had struck a Russian fuel tanker overnight, near a bridge linking Russia to the annexed Ukrainian territory of Crimea – the second such attack in 24 hours.

The oil and chemical tanker SIG is under United States sanctions for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria that are supporting President Bashar al-Assad.

Ukrainian officials say it was transporting fuel for Russian troops in Ukraine when it was struck.

It was hit at around 11.20pm on Friday local time south of the Kerch Strait. It was left with a hole at the waterline, in the area of the engine room.

An oil boom has been placed around the vessel and preparations are under way to patch up the damage, said a Russian official.

Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency said there were no casualties, citing the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Novorossiysk.

In a video circulating online purporting to show the attack, a vessel is seen approaching a large ship before the connection cuts off.

“Overnight, the (Ukrainian Security Service) SBU blew up the SIG, a large oil tanker belonging to the Russian Federation that was transporting fuel for Russian troops,” a Ukrainian source told AFP.

The “successful special operation”, which involved a naval drone and explosives, was carried out jointly with the navy in Ukrainian territorial waters, the source said, adding that the ship was “well-loaded with fuel, so the ‘fireworks’ could be seen from afar”.

Traffic on a key bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula to Russia’s mainland resumed early on Saturday after a three-hour halt, according to the Russian Highways information centre’s Telegram channel.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said 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,” Ms 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 earlier on Saturday 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”.

Maritime attacks

Russian-occupied Crimea has been disrupted by several strikes throughout the war, but it has seen more frequent attacks in recent weeks.

Russian forces on Saturday downed a drone over the sea near Sevastopol, Moscow-installed city governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said.

Ukrainian drone strikes on Crimea in July blew up an ammunition depot and

damaged the strategic bridge across the Kerch Strait.

Tensions have risen on the Black Sea overall since

Russia pulled out of a year-old United Nations-brokered deal

that let Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea, amid Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine on Friday

struck Russia’s Olenegorsky Gornyak warship

at the Novorossiysk base in southern Russia, a Ukrainian security source told AFP, “to show that Ukraine can attack any Russian warship in that zone”.

Russia said it had repelled the attempted attack.

On Saturday, Russia said it had intercepted a US Reaper MQ-9 military drone over the Black Sea, as incidents involving Russian and Western aircraft have multiplied over the Black Sea and Baltic Sea during the offensive in Ukraine.

Increased fighting in the East

On the front line, Russia said it had captured the settlement of Novoselivske in north-eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv said it was confronted with a growing number of attacks.

Footage from the Russian army shows Novoselivske completely destroyed, white smoke billowing over crumbling buildings.

Ukrainian army spokesman Hanna Maliar said on Friday that Russian troops were aiming to draw Ukrainian resources to the east, as Ukraine pursues its counter-offensive in the south.

Ukraine began a new counter-offensive in June but it has made only modest progress, its

forces contending with well-entrenched Russian defensive positions

built up over several months.

With both sides focused on winning on the battlefield, any chance to secure peace looks thin.

Still,

Saudi Arabia is hosting talks on the war in Ukraine

with representatives from nearly 40 countries – including China, India and South Africa – but not Russia.

Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said the session would “not be easy” given the range of countries represented, but “our task is to unite the whole world around Ukraine”. REUTERS, AFP