Five seafarers killed as Russia and Ukraine trade Black Sea blows

The Togo-flagged general cargoship was discharging mineral fertilisers when the drone hit its superstructure, sparking a fire, according to Oleksii Kuleba, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister in charge of restoration.     “Russia struck a civilian merchant vessel flying the flag of Togo during the unloading of mineral fertilisers. The hit to the ship’s superstructure caused a fire,” Kuleba said.      Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa regional military administration, confirmed last night that the toll had climbed to five dead and 12 injured, all of them crewmembers. Seven remain in hospital in a moderate condition, while five others were treated as outpatients.   The Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority said port infrastructure and other civilian facilities were also damaged in the raid, the latest in a near-nightly barrage against Ukraine’s seaports. Two people were killed when Russian drones hit port facilities in the Odesa region on July 11.   Chornomorsk, just down the coast, took the brunt of massed strikes over the weekend. Kernel, Ukraine’s largest producer and exporter of sunflower oil, suspended operations at its export terminal in the port after what it described as heavy hits on its assets.      Around 45,000 tonnes of wheat and 9,000 tonnes of sunflower oil have been blocked, spilled or degraded.       The bombardment continued overnight into this morning, with Russian drones again hitting civilian and industrial sites in the Odesa region, setting sunflower oil tanks ablaze at one enterprise and wrecking a truck depot at another. No casualties were reported. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted more than 100 drones and five ballistic missiles overnight. Kyiv has been returning fire across the Black Sea. Drones struck the Afipsky refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region overnight, sparking a fire near its tank farm, while Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat in Bashkortostan, one of Russia’s largest refining and petrochemical complexes, was also hit. An oil depot in the Stavropol region was set alight a night earlier, and Bloomberg reported this week that Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has driven Russian oil refining to a 21-year low.   In occupied Crimea, meanwhile, the entire city of Sevastopol, home to what remains of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, was blacked out on Sunday evening, while the Dzhankoi district has now been without power for more than a week.      The mounting toll on merchant shipping drew a rebuke from International Maritime Organization secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez, who told the body’s council this week: “I deplore the series of attacks over the past week against civilian merchant ships operating in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.” Dominguez warned that while international attention has fixed on the Strait of Hormuz following recent attacks on shipping there, seafarers elsewhere continue to face serious threats, with such acts endangering crews, disrupting supply chains and undermining the principles on which international shipping depends. “Seafarers should never become casualties of conflicts to which they are not a party,” he said.