MOSCOW: Ukraine sank a Russian ferry carrying fuel tanks in an aerial attack on a southern Russian port on Thursday, Russian officials said.

“As a result of the damage, the ferry sank in the waters of the Kavkaz port,” in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, just across from the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, the region’s operational headquarters said in a statement on Telegram.

It had earlier reported that “a railroad ferry with fuel tanks in the Kavkaz port was attacked” and that emergency services had been dispatched. Images on social media had earlier shown a fire and plume of smoke after Russian officials reported a Ukrainian attack on the port. The Kavkaz port sits in the Kerch Strait that separates Russia from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula it annexed in 2014.

Ukrainian aerial attacks have targeted Crimea and the road and rail bridge connecting it to the Russian mainland throughout the conflict. Officials in Kyiv posted cryptic comments after the attack. “Beautiful,” Daria Zarivna, a communications adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a post on Telegram, attaching a photo of a large fire at the port.

Speaking at an event for army veterans, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to call for his troops to step up attacks on Russian territory.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2024