A cargo vessel traveling from Ukraine’s Odesa region to Turkey was struck by Russian drones early morning on Friday, May 29, injuring crew members – just hours after a series of separate drone attacks hit three Russia-linked tankers near Turkey’s northern coast. According to the Ukrainian Navy, strike drones hit the Vanuatu-flagged cargo ship ANT, owned by a Turkish company, as it was sailing along the Black Sea export route from southern Ukraine.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The strike damaged the ship’s superstructure and sparked a fire on board. The blaze was later extinguished by Ukraine’s Maritime Search and Rescue Service with Navy support. Two crew members were injured and evacuated for medical treatment.
The strike came shortly after a separate incident earlier Thursday in which three tankers linked to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” were hit by drones near Turkey’s northern coast in waters close to the district of Türkeli. No casualties were reported. One of the vessels, the Palau-flagged James II, was struck while sailing in ballast around 80 km north of Türkeli and roughly 77 km from the Bosphorus Strait. The drone reportedly hit its engine room, with about 20 crew members on board. Two additional Sierra Leone-flagged tankers, Altura and Velora, were also hit during a ship-to-ship transfer operation nearby. Footage shared online appeared to show a drone marked with Cyrillic lettering resembling the word “police.”
