Turkish cargo ship badly damaged as Black Sea attacks multiply
A Turkish-owned general cargo ship has been seriously damaged by drone fire in the Black Sea, in one of at least three attacks reported against vessels serving Ukrainian ports within a single day. The 6,555 dwt ATA 2 was carrying corn after leaving Chornomorsk when it was reportedly struck by three Russian drones on Thursday. Video of the aftermath showed a large hole in the upper deck of the 2006-built ship, with further damage to the accommodation block and the bridge.
All thirteen crew members were reported safe. The Panama-flagged vessel retained limited manoeuvrability using a backup manual control system and set course for Romania, with repairs expected to be carried out in Turkey. That the ship remained under way at all, having lost primary steering control and taken structural damage above deck, points to a crew working a casualty rather than abandoning one, but it also illustrates how little margin merchant ships have when they are targeted by weapons designed against warships.
Russia's defence ministry has claimed that recent strikes on vessels and port infrastructure around Odesa and Mykolaiv were directed at military cargoes, though it has frequently offered no independent evidence for those assertions. The pattern through July has fallen heavily on Turkey-linked tonnage. The captain of Atlas Bey was killed earlier in the month, and the Turkish-owned Golden Leo later sank after an attack that killed crew members and a Ukrainian pilot. The accumulation has produced mounting anger among Turkish and Azerbaijani seafarers, with Azerbaijani union representatives arguing that crews must receive full information about trading routes and war risks and that higher wages cannot substitute for a seafarer's right to safety.
At the eastern end of the sea, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium suspended tanker loadings near Novorossiysk following fresh drone attacks on the Greek-controlled suezmaxes Nissos Sifnos and Marathi. Nissos Sifnos was struck near its cargo manifold while loading, starting a fire that was extinguished by the crew with support vessels in attendance. The ship remained stable and no pollution was reported. Marathi was attacked while approaching the terminal.
At least five tankers subsequently diverted or held position offshore, underlining how quickly an attack on a single berth translates into lost export capacity. The consortium carries the overwhelming majority of Kazakhstan's seaborne oil exports and has repeatedly halted operations after drone strikes, meaning a landlocked producer with no involvement in the conflict now sees its revenue interrupted whenever the terminal comes under fire. On both shores of the Black Sea, commercial shipping is being drawn further into a war it has no part in.
