Russia-bound tanker attacked off Türkiye's Black Sea coast

A Russia-bound crude oil tanker came under a "renewed attack" off Türkiye's Black Sea coast early on Saturday, the Turkish Transport Ministry said.

Hours earlier, authorities had reported explosions on two tankers in the same area.

The Transport Ministry statement on X gave no details on how the attack occurred, while state broadcaster TRT cited reports of a sea drone strike. The exact cause could not be immediately confirmed.

One of the terminal's landing stages is no longer usable, according to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC).

The company spoke of a "targeted terrorist attack with unmanned boats". Ukraine repeatedly uses such watercraft loaded with explosives – sea drones – against Russian targets.

The Kazakh Ministry of Energy criticized the attack as an assault on the economic interests of the oil-rich republic in Central Asia. The ministry now intends to seek alternative transport routes.

Late Friday, Turkish rescue teams evacuated 25 crew members from one of the tankers, the Kairos, and brought them ashore.

All 20 crew members aboard the second vessel, the Virat, were reported safe, Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said on social media.

The Virat, also en route to Russia, came under a second attack on Saturday morning and sustained minor damage, the ministry said separately on X. No fire broke out, and the crew remained unharmed, it added.

Rescue teams are keeping a safe distance from the vessel due to ongoing security risks.

Commercial shipping faces growing danger in the Black Sea amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, launched in 2022, and Russian strikes on ports and Ukrainian drone operations.

In February, the CPC consortium's largest oil pumping station in Russia was put out of operation by a drone attack in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia.

It resumed operations in May. In September, the consortium's office in Novorossiysk was damaged in a drone attack, injuring two employees, according to reports at the time.

CPC says that it transports oil from large oil fields in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. Last year, this amounted to around 63 million tonnes of oil, two-thirds of which was accounted for by foreign companies, including ExxonMobil, Eni and Shell.