Battle at sea intensifies as Ukraine drone hits second Russian ship in two days
Russian oil tanker early Saturday off the eastern coast of occupied Crimea, Russian officials and a Ukrainian official said, the second strike on a Russian ship at sea in two days. That attack coincided with a new directive from Ukraine's maritime authority, dated Friday, warning that six Russian Black Sea ports and the approaches to them would be considered «war risk» areas until further notice.
The notice expanded on a less specific warning last month that any vessels sailing to ports in Russia or occupied Ukraine would be considered military targets. Taken together, the tanker attack — which occurred in the Kerch Strait near a critical bridge connecting Russia and the Crimean Peninsula — and Kyiv's new directive have ratcheted up the threat of expanded violence in the Black Sea.
Tensions had been stoked by Russia's sustained aerial assault on Ukraine's ports since Moscow decided last month to withdraw from a U.N.-brokered deal allowing Ukrainian grain exports. The moves fit into Ukraine's newly emboldened strategy of taking the war into Russian territory, as enunciated recently by the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It was, «inevitable, natural and absolutely fair,» he said, that the war «is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases.» This past week, Ukrainian drones hit a Moscow skyscraper housing government ministries twice within 24 hours. And on Friday, another maritime drone damaged a landing vessel of the Russian Navy near the Russian port of Novorossiysk, a key naval and shipping hub on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea.
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