A Russian tanker was targeted by Ukrainian drones in the Kerch Strait early Saturday, briefly halting traffic on the crucial bridge connecting Crimea and Russia.
The tanker was damaged in the attack, and two tugboats were dispatched to the location, according to the state-run TASS news agency, citing the Maritime Rescue Centre.
According to TASS, no gasoline had spilled from the ship, which had 11 persons on board.
The vessel was recognized as the chemical tanker SIG, which is under US sanctions for delivering jet fuel to Russian forces supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
According to Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, several members of the ship’s crew were injured in the attack by broken glass.
“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 roads information center’s Telegram channel, traffic on the bridge connecting the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula to Russia was suspended for around three hours and restarted early Saturday.
The SIG was halted and attended by tugs just south of the strait, according to the Marine Traffic vessel-tracking website.
The latest Black Sea attack comes a day after Ukraine announced a seaborne drone strike on a Russian navy ship at the Novorossiysk naval facility in southern Russia.
Russia announced Friday that it has thwarted a Ukrainian military strike on the site “with the use of two unmanned sea boats.”
Both sides have upped their attacks in the Black Sea after Moscow pulled out of a pact last month that permitted Ukrainian grain exports through the shipping center amid the conflict between the two countries.
