Russian forces hit two more cargo ships off Odesa, killing a captain and injuring three crew members

Russian forces struck two merchant ships traveling along the Black Sea maritime corridor, said Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration. The ships were flying the flags of Tanzania and Liberia. The captain of one of the ships was killed, Kiper said. Eleven crew members were brought ashore, three of them injured.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Russian drones struck three dry cargo ships anchored off the port of Odesa during the day. The attacked ships, the ministry said, had been used in the “interests of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

On July 13, Kiper reported that Russia had shelled port infrastructure in Chornomorsk, a city in the Odesa region. A fire broke out on a Togo-flagged merchant ship moored in the port. According to Kiper, it was carrying mineral fertilizers. Five crew members were killed and ten more injured.

These are not the first incidents in recent weeks in which merchant crew members have been killed in Russian attacks. In the early hours of June 22, a drone attack started a fire on a Turkish dry cargo ship bound for Ukraine under a Panamanian flag. The ship’s cook was killed and eight sailors were evacuated. Three days earlier, Russian drones struck two ships at once — flying the flags of Panama and St. Kitts and Nevis. One person was killed and two others injured on the first ship; three were injured on the second.