The Russian Ministry of Defense said on January 13 that two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) attacked a crude oil tanker named Matilda on the same morning in the Black Sea.
This Malta-flagged ship was leased by a subsidiary of the Kazakhstan national oil and gas group KazMunayGas (KMG) to transport oil from the port of Novorossiysk in Russia.
According to the Russian side, the attack occurred at about 10:15 am local time, when the Matilda ship was operating about 100km from the Russian city of Anapa. This is an area of strategic significance for oil exports through the Black Sea.
KazMunayGas confirmed that the Matilda ship is carrying out a cargo shipment within the framework of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). CPC is a key international energy project, transporting crude oil exploited in Kazakhstan through Russian territory for export to the global market.
On the same day, a video appeared on social networks allegedly recording the scene of a suicide UAV crashing into a second oil tanker named Delta Harmony. Russia believes that this is evidence that Ukraine is expanding its UAV attack campaign targeting maritime and energy targets in the Black Sea.
Ukrainian officials declined to comment on the above incidents. Previously, Moscow repeatedly accused Kiev of deliberately targeting CPC infrastructure on Russian territory as part of a long-range offensive campaign to put economic and energy pressure.
The latest attack is particularly sensitive because it directly relates to the interests of a third party not involved in the conflict, Kazakhstan - one of the largest oil exporters in Central Asia. Most of Kazakhstan's crude oil depends on the CPC route to access the international market.
In November last year, after Kazakhstan officially protested against the disruption of its oil exports due to military actions, Kiev declared that Moscow must be responsible for all damages suffered by other countries in the process of Ukraine conducting military operations.
However, Russia rejects this argument. Russian officials accuse Ukraine of applying "terrorist tactics", damaging the assets and interests of third countries not directly involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
