KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Moscow vowed retaliation Saturday after Ukrainian drones attacked a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea late Friday, the second maritime drone strike in one day.
Ukraine hit a major Russian port earlier on Friday.
Moscow has strongly condemned what it calls a Ukrainian “terrorist attack” on a civilian ship in the Kerch Strait, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“There can be no justification for such barbaric actions, they will not go unchallenged and their authors and perpetrators will inevitably be punished,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
As kyiv’s naval capabilities grow, the Black Sea is becoming an increasingly important battlefield. In the war.
Three weeks ago, Moscow withdrew from a key export deal that allowed Ukraine to ship millions of tons of grain across the Black Sea for sale on world markets. Following that withdrawal, Russia carried out repeated attacks on Ukrainian ports, including Odessa.
An official with the Ukrainian Security Service confirmed to The Associated Press that the service was behind the attack on the tanker truck, which was carrying fuel for Russian forces. A marine drone filled with 450 kilograms (992 pounds) of TNT was used for the attack, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment officially.
“The tanker Sig… suffered a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of a maritime drone strike,” Russia’s Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport wrote in Telegram, adding that there were no casualties among the 11 crew members.
Vladimir Rogov, a Kremlin-appointed official in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine, said several members of the ship’s crew were injured due to broken glass.
Without specifying that Ukraine was responsible for the drone attack, Vasyl Malyuk, who heads the Security Service of Ukraine, said that “such special operations are carried out in the territorial waters of Ukraine and are completely legal.” Any such explosion, he said, is “an absolutely logical and effective step towards the enemy.”
The attack briefly halted traffic on the Kerch bridge, as well as ferry transportation.
Tugboats were deployed to assist the tanker, which is under US sanctions for helping to provide jet fuel to Russian forces fighting in Syria, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
Ukraine’s earlier attack on Novorossiysk halted shipping traffic for a few hours and marked the first time a Russian commercial port has been attacked in the conflict of almost 18 months. The port has a naval base, shipyards and an oil terminal, and is key for exports. It is located about 110 kilometers (about 60 miles) east of Crimea.
Shipping expert Jayendu Krishna told The Associated Press that the attacks left Russian maritime activity “largely unaffected.” He believes they may increase the risk of Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports rather than serve as a tool to pressure Russia to stop the attacks and restore the grain deal.
“Every time something happens to Russia, you see Putin in retaliatory mode…so you may see more attacks in other parts of Ukraine,” Krishna said.
“I think it will probably aggravate the effect and increase the risk in the Black Sea, rather than reduce it,” he added. “It’s very hard for me to imagine that Russia will relent unless and until its banks have smooth operations and can export their own cargo without interruption.”
A Telegram post on Saturday from Russian Security Council Vice President Dmitry Medvedev hinted that Russia would increase its attacks on Ukrainian ports in response to Kiev’s attacks on Russian ships in the Black Sea:
“Apparently, the strikes in Odessa, Izmail and other places were not enough for them,” he wrote.
In other developments, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday it had captured a settlement in Ukraine’s far eastern Luhansk region, most of which is occupied by Russia. “In the Kupiansk area… the Novoselivske settlement was liberated,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
Meanwhile, a two-day summit to find a peaceful solution to the war began in Saudi Arabia.
Senior officials from around 40 countries, but not from Russia, will try to agree on key principles on how to end the conflict.
“It is very important because in matters such as food security, the fate of millions of people in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world directly depends on how quickly the world implements the peace formula,” said the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. said from the summit. “I am grateful to Saudi Arabia for this negotiating platform.”
The top Ukrainian envoy to the summit in Jeddah, top Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak, spoke of the talks on Friday night in a television interview posted on his Telegram account: “I hope the talk will be difficult, but behind us This is the truth. behind us goodness ”, he said.
Commenting on the talks in Saudi Arabia, Zakharova told Russian state media that the idea of making decisions on the conflict without Moscow’s involvement was “absurd.” Nevertheless, she said, delegates have “every chance for creativity” to discuss the issue.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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