RIGHT SPEAK: UKRaine Drone Strike Damages RUssian Tanker Day After Port Attack; UKR Hits RU Tanker with Sea Drone Near Crimea Bridge; Defense Forces Repel Russian Attacks in Kupiansk, Avdiivka Sectors; UKR Repels RU Offensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

Ukraine drone strike damages Russian tanker day after port attack:

Ukraine launched a drone strike on a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea Saturday, the second attack in 24 hours on Russia’s maritime operations.

Ukrainian forces hit a major Russian port Friday, damaging a warship.

A Ukrainian Security Service official anonymously confirmed to the Associated Press that the agency was behind the strike on the tanker, carried out by a sea drone packed with nearly 1,000 pounds of TNT. The ship was carrying fuel for Russian forces.

The head of Ukraine’s Security Service, Vasyl Maliuk, did not go as far as to claim Ukraine was responsible for the attack, but said “such special operations are conducted in the territorial waters of Ukraine and are completely legal” and added that any explosions in that area of the Black Sea are “an absolutely logical and effective step with regard to the enemy.”

Maliuk added that if Russia wanted the strikes to stop “they have the only option to do so — leave the territorial waters of Ukraine and our land.”

Russian authorities also confirmed the strike in a statement posted online.

“The Sig tanker … suffered a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of a sea drone attack,” Russia’s Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport said on Telegram. The post added that there were no deaths among the 11 crew members.

However, Vladimir Rogov, the Moscow official for Ukraine’s partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said multiple members of the crew were wounded by broken glass.

The Sig was already under US sanctions for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria supporting the president, Bashar al-Assad, The Guardian reported. --->READ MORE HERE

File photo. REUTERS/Yoruk Isik

Ukraine hits Russian tanker with sea drone near Crimea Bridge:

A Ukrainian sea drone full of explosives struck a Russian fuel tanker overnight near a bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea, the second such attack in 24 hours, both sides said on Saturday.

No one was hurt, but the Crimean Bridge and ferry transport were suspended for several hours, according to Russian-installed officials in Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.

A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters that the drone with 450 kg of explosives hit the SIG vessel as it transported fuel for the Russian military in Ukrainian territorial waters.

"The tanker was well loaded with fuel, so the 'fireworks' were seen from afar," the source said, of the joint operation by Ukraine's navy and security service.

Kyiv says destroying Russia's military infrastructure inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine is crucial to its counteroffensive after the February 2022 invasion.

Another sea drone attack on Russia's navy base at Novorossiysk damaged a warship on Friday, the first time the Ukrainian navy had projected its power so far from its shores.

And a Ukrainian government agency warned on Saturday that six Russian Black Sea ports - Anapa, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi, and Taman - were in "war risk area".

Moscow has bombed Ukrainian ports since its withdrawal last month from a U.N.-brokered deal to let Ukraine export grain.

FUEL FOR TROOPS

The SIG tanker had been supplying oil to Russian troops in Syria, according to Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in Ukraine's southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia. --->READ MORE HERE