Turkey says tanker travelling from Russia reports being attacked in the Black Sea

Turkey announced on Tuesday that a tanker had reported coming under attack in the Black Sea while travelling from Russia to Georgia, only days after two other vessels were struck off the Turkish coast.

A Ukrainian security source told AFP that their forces had carried out the earlier attacks, saying drones had targeted ships that were “covertly transporting Russian oil”.

Turkey’s maritime affairs directorate stated on X that the latest incident was reported on Tuesday morning by the Midvolga 2, which “reported that it was attacked 80 nautical miles off our coast”.

The vessel had been “sailing from Russia to Georgia loaded with sunflower oil”.

According to the directorate, “The ship, which currently has no adverse conditions among its 13 personnel, has no request for assistance.”

The tanker was heading towards the port of Sinop in the central region of Turkey’s Black Sea coastline, which runs approximately 1,600 kilometres along the sea’s southern side.

The maritime tracking website VesselFinder identifies the Midvolga 2 as an “oil/chemical tanker”.

The site did not provide an updated position for the ship, whose last recorded location on 21 November indicated it was travelling from the Turkish port of Samsun to Russia’s Rostov-on-Don.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Friday’s drone attacks as a “worrying escalation”.
“We cannot under any circumstances accept these attacks, which threaten the safety of navigation, the environment and lives in our exclusive economic zone,” he said on Monday evening.

“The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has clearly reached a stage where it threatens the safety of navigation in the Black Sea.”

Two empty oil tankers, the Virat and the Kairos, had both reported explosions on Friday, though no injuries were recorded.

The Kairos was hit at around 1500 GMT while en route to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, with rescuers evacuating its 25 crew members after a fire erupted, Turkish officials reported.

At the time of the incident, it was located about 100 kilometres east of the point where the Bosphorus Strait meets the Black Sea.

The Virat was struck later, approximately 400 kilometres further east, according to VesselFinder. It reported a second explosion in the early hours of Saturday morning, though none of its 20 crew were injured.

Turkey’s transport ministry blamed drones for both of the attacks on the Virat.

Both tankers — which were flying the Gambian flag, according to VesselFinder — are under Western sanctions for transporting oil from Russian ports in violation of an embargo introduced after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Khaborwala/SS