Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Tanker hit near Crimea bridge in ‘drone’ attack

The Russian oil tanker attacked in the Black Sea on Saturday was hit by a Ukrainian maritime drone carrying 450 kg of explosives and was struck as it transported fuel for the Russian military, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters on Saturday.

The source said the attack on the SIG vessel was a joint operation by the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Navy, and had been conducted in Ukrainian territorial waters.

Harrowing new accounts of Ukrainians being tortured during Russia’s eight-month occupation of Kherson are “just the tip of the iceberg”, an international team investigating the alleged war crimes has warned.

The UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, told The Independent that similarities in the accounts of victims across several different regions of Ukraine “expose a deeper concern that torture and intimidation are a policy and strategy of the Russian state”.

Niger’s new military junta has asked for help from the Russian mercenary group Wagner as the deadline nears for it to release the country’s ousted president or face possible military intervention by the West African regional bloc, according to an analyst.

The request came during a visit by one of the coup leaders, Gen. Salifou Mody, to neighboring Mali, where he made contact with someone from Wagner, Wassim Nasr, a journalist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, told The Associated Press.

He said three Malian sources and a French diplomat confirmed the meeting first reported by France 24.

“They need (Wagner) because they will become their guarantee to hold onto power,” he said, adding that the group is considering the request.

A U.S.-sanctioned Russian tanker near the strategic bridge linking Russia to Crimea was damaged by a sea drone attack, Russian maritime officials said early on Saturday.

No one was hurt in the attack on the SIG tanker, but the Crimean Bridge and ferry transport were suspended for several hours, said Russia-installed officials in Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The United States sanctioned the chemical tanker and its owner, St. Petersburg-based Transpetrochart, in 2019 for helping provide jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria.

“The SIG tanker… received a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, preliminarily as a result of a sea drone attack,” Russia’s Federal Marine and River Transport agency said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian media said the tanker, approaching the Kerch Strait that links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, was hit by Ukrainian drones.

Ukraine’s Interfax agency, citing an unnamed Ukrainian security service source, said the attack was conducted by Ukraine’s security and naval forces in its territorial waters, using sea drones.

Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

The Russian Navy landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak almost certainly suffered serious damage after being struck while near the Black Sea Fleet’s (BSF) Novorossiysk base, the British Ministry of Defence said today.

“Images of the vessel listing at 30-40 degrees suggest that several watertight compartments were breached, or that the crew’s damage control efforts were ineffectual,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.

“This is a significant blow to the BSF, which previously relocated most of its units to Novorossiysk due to the high threat to Sevastopol,” the ministry said.

It added that the vessel, routinely assigned to Russia’s Northern Fleet, has “augmented the BSF since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has often ferried military and civilian traffic between Russia and occupied Crimea when the Kerch Bridge has been disrupted due to attacks”.

“The 3600 tonne, 113 metre long Olenegorsky Gornyak represents the largest Russian naval vessel seriously damaged or destroyed since the sinking of the cruiser Moskva on 13 April 2022,” the MoD said.

In a span of a decade, Alexei Navalny has gone from the Kremlin’s biggest foe to Russia’s most prominent political prisoner.

Already serving two convictions that have landed him in prison for at least nine years, he stands a new trial that could keep him behind bars for two more decades.

The verdict in the trial is due to be announced Friday in a makeshift courtroom in the Penal Colony No. 6, where Navalny is being held and where the trial took place behind closed doors, in the town of Melekhovo, about 230 kilometres (over 140 miles) east of Moscow.

Ukraine has accused Russia of planning a “false flag” attack on an oil refinery in Belarus in an attempt to draw Minsk into the war, as tensions rise on Nato’s eastern border.

While Alexander Lukashenko has so far avoided being dragged into the full-scale conflict by his close ally Vladimir Putin, the Belarusian president allowed Moscow’s troops to use Belarus as a staging ground for their invasion last February, and has agreed to host Russian nuclear weapons.

Concerns have been brewing in the West since Mr Lukashenko agreed to take in Wagner mercenaries exiled from Russia after their shortlived mutiny, with Nato member Poland warning this week of the threat posed by the “extremely dangerous” fighters, as it scrambled troops to their shared border.

Andy Gregory reports here:

The engine room of SIG tanker deployed by Russia near Crimea was damaged as a result of a sea drone attack, Russia’s Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport confirmed today.

“The SIG tanker… received a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, preliminarily as a result of a sea drone attack,” the agency said in a statement.

No immediate casualties have been reported.

Britain will back Ukraine “every way we can” until the war is over, Ben Wallace said.

His comments follow a heartfelt call from Olena Zelenska, in an exclusive interview with Independent TV, to other nations, in which she said: “Please don’t get fatigued, because we as Ukrainians have no right to get tired.”