Dec 18 (Reuters) – Three people, including two crew members of a cargo vessel, were killed in overnight Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don and the town of Bataysk in the southern Rostov region, the local governor said on Thursday.
The vessel was Russia-flagged tanker Valeriy Gorchakov, according to British maritime risk management company Vanguard. A fire on board was extinguished, Yuri Slyusar wrote on his Telegram messaging app channel. Rostov-on-Don head Alexander Skryabin said that a leak of oil products had been avoided.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of deliberately attacking civilian vessels, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to cut Ukraine off from the sea after Kyiv’s attacks damaged three “shadow fleet” tankers heading to Russia this month to export its oil.
One person was killed and seven people were injured in the town of Bataysk where two private homes caught fire as a result of a drone attack, Slyusar said.
The Valeriy Gorchakov is managed by the Volgo-Balt Service, according to LSEG ship-tracking data.
(Reporting by Ronald Popeski, Ksenia Orlova; additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in London; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman , Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ed Osmond)
The Swedish Coast Guard said on Friday it had seized an oil tanker in the Baltic Sea that is believed to be part of the Russian shadow fleet and suspected to be the source of a 12 km oil spill off the island of Gotland.
The liquefied natural gas carrier Arctic Metagaz is “completely out of control at sea” in the Mediterranean after a towing attempt collapsed at around 0400 local time on April 2 due to severe weather, according to an urgent notice issued by Libya’s Ports and Maritime Transport Authority.
Libyan authorities have effectively halted efforts to secure the stricken LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz, towing the vessel far offshore and leaving it adrift near the edge of Malta’s search and rescue (SAR) zone, according to maritime tracking data, regional media and OSINT reporting.
April 1, 2026
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