The attack was the second drone strike in one day after Ukrainian forces hit a major Russian port Friday, damaging a warship.
Ukraine launched a drone strike on a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea Saturday, the second attack in 24 hours on Russia’s maritime operations.
Ukrainian forces hit a major Russian port Friday, damaging a warship.
A Ukrainian Security Service official anonymously confirmed to the Associated Press that the agency was behind the strike on the tanker, carried out by a sea drone packed with nearly 1,000 pounds of TNT. The ship was carrying fuel for Russian forces.
The head of Ukraine’s Security Service, Vasyl Maliuk, did not go as far as to claim Ukraine was responsible for the attack, but said “such special operations are conducted in the territorial waters of Ukraine and are completely legal” and added that any explosions in that area of the Black Sea are “an absolutely logical and effective step with regard to the enemy.”
Maliuk added that if Russia wanted the strikes to stop “they have the only option to do so — leave the territorial waters of Ukraine and our land.”
Russian authorities also confirmed the strike in a statement posted online.
