In a new aggressive incident targeting civilian maritime traffic in the Black Sea, Russian unmanned aerial vehicles have attacked two commercial vessels flying the flags of Panama and St. Kitts and Nevis, leaving one crew member dead and five others wounded, Ukrainian officials confirmed Friday.
Oleksii Kuleba, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration and Minister of Communities and Territories Development, shared the details of the attack via his Telegram channel, confirming the fatal casualties and varying degrees of injury among the civilian crews.
“As a result of the attack by Russian UAVs on civilian vessels in the Black Sea, a crew member of a Panamanian-flagged vessel was killed, and two other sailors were injured, one of them severely,” Kuleba said in his statement. “My sincere condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased.”
The second vessel, registered under the flag of St. Kitts and Nevis, was also hit in the drone assault. Three crew members on board suffered minor injuries, Kuleba added.
The Ukrainian official stressed that this attack is not an isolated event, but further evidence of Russia’s deliberate campaign against global rules-based maritime order. Kuleba pointed out that Russia is actively targeting civilian crews, merchant ships and critical maritime infrastructure that support the UN-brokered humanitarian and grain export routes that have been vital to stabilizing global food supplies since the start of the full-scale invasion.
“This is yet another proof that Russia is waging a war against freedom of navigation, international trade, and global food security. Civilian crews, merchant ships, and maritime infrastructure that support humanitarian and export routes are targeted,” Kuleba said. “But such crimes must be clearly classified internationally as terrorism. The world cannot grow accustomed to civilian sailors becoming targets for Russian weapons.”
This latest assault comes less than two weeks after another fatal Russian attack on Ukrainian civilian maritime assets in the same region. On June 8, Russian forces struck two civilian search and rescue boats that were carrying out a humanitarian mission within Ukraine’s established temporary maritime corridor, leaving multiple casualties. Separate Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in the southern Mykolaiv region on the same day as this latest drone strike also left one civilian dead, according to prior reports from Ukrainian news outlet Ukrinform.