Tanker Carrying Russian Oil Hit By Drone Attack in Black Sea
A tanker carrying Russian oil has been hit by drones near the northern entrance to the Bosporus, according to Turkish officials.
The vessel, identified as the Sierra Leone-flagged Suezmax Altura, sustained damage to her bridge and to her engine room, according to Turkish channel NTV. No injuries were reported among the 27 members of the crew, all of whom are Turkish nationals.
The salvage and rescue vessel Nene Hatun was dispatched to the scene to assist. As of Thursday morning, Nene Hatun remained on scene with Altura, which was adrift and broadcasting "not under command."
Turkish transport minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu told local media that it is believed that the strike was carried out with an unmanned underwater vehicle - a rarely-used method of attack in the region, where tanker strikes are typically attributed to Ukrainian drone boats and UAVs.
The strike is also unusual as the vessel is in laden condition. Previous attacks on Russian-associated tonnage near Turkey occurred when the vessels were in ballast, and the risk of a spill would be far lower.
Altura's AIS signal shows that the ship transited to the northeastern sector of the Black Sea, near the Russian loading port of Novorossiysk, but the heavy GPS disruption found in this region prevents confirmation of her last port call.
Ukrainian strike campaign
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the strike on Altura, but it has been aggressively ramping up the tempo of its attacks on Russian oil infrastructure for the past week. Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil ports and pipelines have degraded about 40 percent of Russia's crude export capacity, according to a new analysis by Reuters.
Russia gets its petroleum to market via a mix of pipeline connections (to China, Hungary, and Slovakia) and tanker shipments (primarily to China, India and Turkey). Ukraine has attempted to systematically disassemble the western half of this export network, using deep strikes with UAVs to hit energy targets hundreds of miles from its borders. The Pacific terminal at Kozmino is out of range, but the Black Sea terminals at Tuapse and Novorossiysk can be hit from Ukrainian territory, as can the Baltic terminals at Primorsk and Ust-Luga. All four have been attacked repeatedly.
According to Reuters, the inner-harbor terminal at Novorossiysk continues to load more slowly than normal after the last round of Ukrainian strikes. Ust-Luga and Primorsk were heavily disrupted by this week's attacks, and have reportedly shut down while firefighting and damage control are under way. Footage circulating on social media suggests significant damage to the Novatek gas condensate terminal in Ust-Luga, potentially extending to two tankers moored along the pier.
In addition to reduced port loadings, the section of the Druzhba pipeline that runs through Ukraine was damaged by a Russian strike, Ukrainian officials claim. It remains shut, nearly two months after the initial report of damage, and Hungary and Slovakia - both dependent on Russian oil - have accused Ukraine of deliberately keeping it offline. Taken together, the shutdown oil ports and the pipeline amount to roughly 40 percent of Russian capacity, Reuters assesses.
Ukraine has additional motivation to hamper Russian energy sales because of the West's newfound willingness to ease off sanctions on Moscow. With oil prices soaring, the White House made the decision to temporarily waive restrictions on both Russian and Iranian oil - much to the dismay of the two regimes' critics.
"This is the wrong approach, because the more they have, the more they will ship drones or missiles to Iran, or the more they fire on us," Oleksii Riabchyn, a top executive at Ukrainian gas firm Naftogaz, told Politico this week.
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Republican officials have begun registering unease with the sanctions waiver as well, including Sen. Kerry Moran (R-KS), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), according to the New York Times.
Top image: Altura (file image courtesy VesselFinder)
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