A Turkish shipping company said its passenger and cargo ship Cenk T was hit by a missile while docked at Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Chornomorsk on Friday, and Reuters reported that the vessel was damaged and on fire after what the news agency described as a Russian attack, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
Reuters said one of the sources placed the ship in Chornomorsk, which it described as one of the three main ports in Ukraine’s Odesa region. It was not immediately clear whether the ship was deliberately targeted.
In its statement the company, Cenk Denizcilik, said the ship operates on the Karasu–Odesa route across the Black Sea and came under attack after docking at Chornomorsk at about 4 p.m. local time. The company said a fire broke out on the bow and that tugs, port firefighting units and the crew responded. The company said it had no information about deaths or injuries at the time of its statement.
Reuters identified the vessel as the Cenk T and said a Panama-flagged ship by that name was shown in the Black Sea on the ship tracking website MarineTraffic. Reuters said it could not independently confirm the ship’s flag but said a source familiar with the matter described the owner as Turkish.
Ukraine’s air force reported missile and drone attacks on the Odesa region on Friday, according to Reuters.
The incident comes as Ukraine and Russia escalate attacks tied to maritime traffic in the Black Sea. Russia recently threatened to cut Ukraine off from the sea in response to Ukrainian sea drone attacks on tankers carrying Russia-linked oil.
Turkey has criticized recent Black Sea attacks that struck Russia-linked tankers near the Bosporus and inside Turkey’s exclusive economic zone, calling them a threat to navigation and trade.
But Friday’s incident involved a Turkey-run, Ukraine-linked ship.
Another Turkish-owned tanker, a Russian-linked one, was damaged off Senegal last month in an incident the operator described as unexplained