Overview
- Turkey said the Kairos and Virat were struck in its exclusive economic zone and condemned the incidents as serious risks to navigation and the environment.
- Ukraine’s security service said domestically built Sea Baby maritime drones disabled the sanctioned tankers and released video purporting to show the attacks.
- Turkish authorities reported all crew were safe, with 25 evacuated from the burning Kairos and no evacuation requested for the Virat, which sustained above‑waterline damage.
- OpenSanctions lists both vessels as part of a shadow fleet used to move Russian oil in defiance of Western measures, a status Ukraine cited to justify the operation.
- The Caspian Pipeline Consortium said a Novorossiysk sea‑loading terminal suffered severe damage from marine drones, halting loading as monitoring found no initial spill.