Turkey stated on Tuesday that a tanker had reported being attacked in the Black Sea while travelling from Russia to Georgia, coming only days after two separate vessels were struck near the Turkish coastline.
A Ukrainian security source told AFP that their forces were responsible for the earlier incidents, saying drones had been used to strike vessels that were “covertly transporting Russian oil”.
In a statement on X, Turkey’s maritime affairs directorate said the Midvolga 2 had communicated on Tuesday morning that it “was attacked 80 nautical miles off our coast”.
The tanker was “sailing from Russia to Georgia loaded with sunflower oil”, it added.
It further reported that “the ship, which currently has no adverse conditions among its 13 personnel, has no request for assistance.”
The vessel was travelling towards the port of Sinop, situated in the central stretch of Turkey’s 1,600-kilometre Black Sea coastline.
According to VesselFinder, the Midvolga 2 is classified as an “oil/chemical tanker”.
The site did not list an updated location for the ship; its last recorded position on 21 November showed it travelling from the Turkish port of Samsun towards Rostov-on-Don in Russia.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the drone strikes on Friday marked a “worrying escalation”.
“We cannot under any circumstances accept these attacks, which threaten the safety of navigation, the environment and human life in our exclusive economic zone,” he declared on Monday evening.
“The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has clearly reached a point where it endangers the safety of navigation in the Black Sea.”
Two empty oil tankers — the Virat and the Kairos — both reported explosions on Friday, though no injuries occurred.
The Kairos was hit at around 1500 GMT while heading to the port of Novorossiysk, with rescuers evacuating all 25 crew after a fire broke out, Turkish authorities reported.
At the time, the vessel was approximately 100 kilometres east of the entrance to the Black Sea from the Bosphorus Strait.
The Virat was hit later, around 400 kilometres further east, according to VesselFinder, and reported a second explosion early Saturday, though all 20 crew members remained uninjured.
Turkey’s transport ministry attributed both attacks on the Virat to drones.
Both vessels — flying the Gambian flag, according to VesselFinder — are under Western sanctions due to transporting Russian oil in breach of the embargo imposed after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Glive24/SS