Valery Gorchakov, a ship that was reportedly struck in a Ukrainian drone strike on Rostov-on-Don. Photo: VesselFinder
Three people were killed in drone strikes on Russia’s southern Rostov region, local authorities said on Thursday, as Russia and Ukraine exchanged aerial attacks overnight.
In a Telegram post, Rostov Governor Yury Slyusar said Ukrainian forces had attacked a “cargo ship” in the port of the regional capital Rostov-on-Don, causing a fire that killed two members of its crew and injured three more.
Rostov Mayor Alexander Skryabin said in a separate post that an unspecified vessel had been damaged in the attack, adding that an oil spill had been avoided.
According to Ukrainian open source data project Exilenova+, the vessel was the Valery Gorchakov, a dry cargo ship converted into a tanker and used to transport Russian oil as part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet”. Tracking service MarineTraffic confirmed it was docked at the port of Rostov-on-Don at the time of the attack.
Earlier in December, Vladimir Putin described Ukrainian attacks on oil tankers belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet in the Black Sea as “piracy” and threatened to “cut Ukraine off from the sea” should the strikes continue.
Elsewhere in Rostov-on-Don, a Ukrainian drone hit a newly built apartment block, but did not cause any injuries, Slyusar said. Independent news outlet ASTRA reported the damaged building was near the city’s Interior Ministry office.
A separate Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Bataysk, around 15km south of Rostov, injured seven people, one of whom later died in hospital, Slyusar said.
According to Russia’s Defence Ministry, air defences downed 31 Ukrainian drones over Russia’s western Bryansk region, five over the Black Sea, four each over the western Belgorod region and occupied Crimea, and three over the Rostov region.
Ukraine’s Air Force, meanwhile, said it had destroyed 63 of the 82 Russian drones launched at the country overnight, but that strikes were recorded at 12 locations across Ukraine.
Authorities in the southern port city of Odesa reported that eight people had been injured in an overnight Russian drone strike on “civilian targets”, while the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported injuries to six people in a Russian drone attack on the central Cherkasy region and four more in a separate strike on the central city of Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
