Video: Ukraine sinks Russian container ship, strikes deep-inside refineries
Abdullateef Fowewe
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that overnight strikes by Ukrainian forces sank a sanctioned Russian container ship in the Black Sea and hit infrastructure at three oil refineries deep inside Russia’s Bashkortostan region.
Zelenskyy in a statement on Saturday said Ukrainian defence forces carried out “precision strikes” overnight in the waters of the Black and Azov Seas, targeting facilities that support Russia’s war effort.
Among the targets was the Russian-flagged container ship Yanina, a sanctioned vessel with a capacity of more than 100,000 tonnes.
“Thanks to the precision of our Defence Forces, it was sent to the bottom,” Zelenskyy wrote, posting video that shows a sea drone approaching a large vessel before impact.
Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation that owns the ship through its shipping subsidiary FESCO, said two Ukrainian sea drones struck the Yanina about 130 miles from the port of Novorossiysk, forcing all 17 crew members to abandon ship.
The company called the attack “piracy and maritime banditry,” insisting the vessel was in international waters and carrying civilian goods such as frozen food and construction materials.
Zelenskyy also said units of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) struck infrastructure at three Russian oil refineries in Bashkortostan, nearly 1,600 kilometres from Ukraine’s border.
He described the refineries as processing “millions of tons of oil each year” and said they were among the “carefully identified facilities that support the war effort.”
The post frames the operation as a measured response to repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas, including a barrage the previous night of 35 missiles and 185 drones on Kyiv that killed nine people.
Video accompanying Zelenskyy’s statement shows massive smoke plumes rising from an industrial site, consistent with Ukraine’s ongoing campaign of long-range drone strikes on Russian energy and logistics infrastructure.
Bashkortostan Governor Radiy Khabirov acknowledged that drones had targeted the Ufa area but claimed the attack was repelled, with debris from a downed drone causing smoke in an industrial zone; no casualties were reported.
In his message, Zelenskyy thanked Ukrainian forces for executing what he called a “just pressure” campaign against Russian military-supporting assets.
“Grateful to Ukrainian warriors who are bringing the war back to Russia and responding to its attacks against life. Our targets are consistently defined facilities that sustain the war effort.
“We continue applying our just pressure. Our long-range sanctions plan is being implemented step by step,” he wrote.
