In historic first, Ukraine destroys Russian shadow fleet tanker in Mediterranean Sea off Crete

Ukraine’s military attacked a tanker belonging to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” in the Mediterranean Sea, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reported on Friday, citing a source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

The operation, which was carried out over 2,000 kilometers from Ukrainian territory, came days after the SBU claimed that an underwater drone had destroyed a Russian submarine “for the first time in history,” and was the first known Ukrainian strike on a Russian vessel in the Mediterranean Sea.

According to Suspilne, Ukraine’s military used aerial drones to target QENDIL2, a tanker belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet, in a “multistage operation” as it sailed in international waters southeast of Crete.

At the time of the operation, the Russian ship was not carrying cargo, so the “attack did not pose any threat to environmental conditions in the region”, an SBU source cited by Suspilne said.

The QENDIL2 was critically damaged in the strike and was rendered inoperable, Ukrainian news outlet RBC-Ukraine reported Friday.

“Russia used this tanker to circumvent sanctions and earn money, which was used to finance the war against Ukraine. Therefore, from the perspective of international law and the laws and customs of war, this is a completely legitimate target for the SBU,” a source in the SBU cited by Suspilne said.

The attack comes amid a rapidly expanding naval campaign by Ukraine against Russian shadow fleet and naval targets.

On Wednesday, Yury Slyusar, governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region, said that Ukrainian forces had attacked a cargo ship in the port of the regional capital Rostov-on-Don, causing a fire that killed two members of its crew and injured three more.

According to Ukrainian open source data project Exilenova+, the vessel was the Valery Gorchakov, a dry cargo ship converted into an oil tanker operating within Russia’s oil fleet. Ship tracking service MarineTraffic confirmed it was docked at the port of Rostov-on-Don at the time of the attack.

Two days earlier, the SBU said a Russian Kilo-class attack submarine moored at the southern port of Novorossiysk had been rendered inoperable in what it termed a “historic” strike using a Sub Sea Baby underwater drone. Russia’s Defense Ministry later denied the claim, saying it did not “reflect reality”.

Speaking during his annual Direct Line call-in show on Friday, Vladimir Putin combatively responded to questions about Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian shadow fleet tankers and claims by Russian defence officials that NATO states were preparing to blockade the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

“If threats of this kind are made against us, we will destroy them,” Putin said, appearing to refer to Europe. “Actions of this kind will simply lead to an unprecedented escalation of the conflict, take it to a completely different level and expand it into a large-scale armed conflict,” he said.