Drone hits Turkish oil tanker near Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait

A naval drone struck a Turkish oil tanker carrying Russian crude oil in the Black Sea near Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait on Thursday.

Turkey’s minister of transportation and infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, confirmed the incident to local media on Thursday. The oil-carrying vessel, the Altura, was sailing from Novorossiysk, Russia, to Istanbul when it was hit by a waterborne drone.

Turkish officials believe a foreign unmanned surface vehicle at water level targeted the vessel’s engine room, Uraloglu told Turkish outlet 24 TV. The ship was sailing under the flag of Sierra Leone at the time of the attack, according to Vessel Finder.

Uraloglu announced that all 27 crew members aboard, all of whom were Turkish nationals, were uninjured in the attack. The attack occurred just outside Turkey’s territorial waters, about 18 nautical miles from the Bosphorus Strait, according to France 24.

Both the European Union and the United Kingdom have imposed sanctions against Altura. The