A Ukrainian drone attack on Tuesday set fire to a Liberian-flagged oil tanker carrying 23 Indian crew members off Russia’s Black Sea coast, Russian authorities have said. All 23 people aboard the tanker, the Aframax Rio, were later rescued and no injuries were reported, according to Russia’s transport ministry.
The ministry said the tanker was attacked by “naval drones” on Tuesday, causing a fire near the Russian resort city of Sochi. Crude oil was reported to have caught fire and was burning openly on the Black Sea.
Firefighters were initially unable to tackle the blaze because of its intensity. The transport ministry said emergency crews had sufficient resources to fight the fire once the flames became less intense.
The vessel was carrying an entirely Indian crew.
Massive fire reported in the Russian Black Sea port city of Sochi this evening. Local channels report that a ship exploded in the port area. https://t.co/W4XhDaujR0
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 6, 2026
Sochi Coast Restricted
The tanker was reported to have caught fire off Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, with a large plume of black smoke visible from Sochi. Authorities in the Sirius federal territory closed beaches following the incident and began monitoring water and air quality.
“According to atmospheric air quality monitoring data, pollutant concentrations in the Sirius Federal Territory remain many times lower than the maximum permissible concentrations and pose no threat to health,” said Dmitry Plishkin, head of the Sirius federal territory administration.
Videos and photographs circulating on social media showed flames burning offshore and a thick column of black smoke rising above the sea. Sochi authorities restricted access to parts of the coast, while beaches in Sirius were also closed.
The Aframax Rio was reportedly close to the Russian coast when the attack took place. MarineTraffic had last located the tanker in the Black Sea near the Russia-Georgia border.
The vessel has been included on Ukraine’s sanctions list as part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet”, according to The Kyiv Independent.
Attacks on Black Sea Shipping
The incident came amid a series of attacks involving commercial vessels in the Black Sea since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia and Ukraine have both targeted shipping in the region during the conflict.
Russia has recently attacked grain vessels carrying Ukrainian goods near the Romanian coast. Earlier on Tuesday, a Russian strike on a merchant vessel flying the Marshall Islands flag in the Black Sea killed at least one crew member and injured several others.
The vessel was carrying rapeseed oil and caught fire after its superstructure was damaged.
Two other merchant ships, the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan and Palau-flagged Able, were also hit by drones of unknown origin about 112km off Bulgaria’s coast.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied that Ukrainian forces were responsible for those attacks. “Our intelligence and special services are now working to establish all available information about yet another attack in the Black Sea targeting civilian vessels,” he wrote on social media.
Zelenskyy said two civilian vessels had been attacked in Bulgarian waters the previous night, with one sinking and the other suffering significant damage.
“Ukraine’s Defense Forces conducted no operations in this area of the sea,” he said, describing the incident as “another part of Russia’s effort to make the western Black Sea completely unfit for navigation”.
He said Ukraine had verified the details with Bulgaria and that its navy had contacted Bulgarian counterparts. “It has been established that this was a combined Russian attack using maritime and aerial drones,” he said.
Zelenskyy also instructed Ukraine’s armed forces, defence ministry, intelligence services and other agencies to coordinate with international partners “as fully as possible” to strengthen their ability to defend themselves.
Russia Reports Major Ukrainian Drone Attack
The tanker fire came after Russia said its air defences had intercepted nearly 900 Ukrainian drones overnight across several regions, as well as occupied Crimea and the Sea of Azov. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 650 drones had flown towards the Moscow region between Monday evening and Tuesday morning, with most destroyed before reaching the capital.
A man plays his guitar in Sochi Russia tonight with in the background a burning oil tanker hit by drones lighting up the sky. https://t.co/vSiGu3MWep
— WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 (@WarMonitor3) October 6, 2026
He later said another 68 drones targeting Moscow had been shot down during daylight on Tuesday.
Unconfirmed media reports said a major fuel depot in the Moscow region had caught fire following the attacks, with two people reportedly killed.
Ukraine has increasingly used domestically developed long-range drones and missiles to strike targets inside Russia during the more than four-year-old war.
Kyiv has targeted Russian oil refineries and storage facilities. Ukrainian officials said last weekend that 51% of Russia’s oil-refining capacity had been disabled, although the claim has not been independently verified.
Zelenskyy Warns of Possible Russian Strike
The latest attacks come as Ukraine prepares for what Zelenskyy has warned could be a “massive” Russian aerial attack. “Today, we received updated intelligence on Russia’s preparations for a massive strike. We are preparing countermeasures,” he said on social media. “We set deadlines for a significant part of the tasks, and the highest-priority ones are already being implemented.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said last week that Kyiv estimated Russia had 600 ballistic missiles in reserve and could produce up to 140 ballistic missiles a month.
