MOSCOW: Ukrainian drones hit a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait, briefly halting traffic on the strategic bridge linking Crimea to Russia, Russian media reported early Saturday.
Citing the Maritime Rescue Center, the state-run TASS news agency said the tanker was damaged in the attack and two tugboats had arrived at the scene.
11 people were on board while no fuel had spilled from the ship, TASS said.
The Moscow Times identified the vessel as the SIG, a chemical tanker, under United States sanctions for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria supporting President Bashar Assad.
A Russian-installed official in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, Vladimir Rogov said several members of the ship’s crew were wounded 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.
According to the highways information center’s Telegram channel, traffic on the bridge linking the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula to Russia was stopped for almost three hours and resumed early today.
The Marine Traffic vessel-tracking website showed the SIG unmoving and attended by tugs just south of the strait.
The number of attacks in the Black Sea by both Russia and Ukraine 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.
