''Sig'' (russian: Сиг) is a Russian product tanker, designed to transport refined oil products, it is long, measured at . The vessel is

registered Registered may refer to: * Registered mail, letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and in need of a chain of custody * Registered trademark symbol, symbol ® that provides notice that the preceding is a trademark or service ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, Russia.

History

The ''Sig'', and its owner, Transpetrochart, were placed under the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions in 2019 for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria and is sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury under Ukraine/Russia-Related Sanctions Regulations UKRAINE-EO13685 which relates to blocking property of certain persons and prohibiting certain transactions with respect to the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...

Region of Ukraine. On 5 August 2023 the tanker was reported to have been the target of a

naval drone Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), also known as unmanned surface vessels, autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) in some cases, uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), or colloquially drone ships, or robot boats, are boats or ships that operate on the ...

attack by Ukrainian forces in the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...

south of the

Crimean Bridge The Crimean Bridge ( rus, Крымский мост, r=Krymskiy most, p=ˈkrɨmskʲij most), also called Kerch Strait Bridge or Kerch Bridge, is a pair of parallel bridges, one for a four-lane road and one for a double-track railway, spanning t ...

which damaged the engine room on the starboard side. The drone carried of

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reage ...

and left a hole in the side of the ship, partly below the waterline. The Russian media company

TASS The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...

reported that the vessel was afloat and was being assisted by two

tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, su ...

s. The tanker was not carrying any cargo at the time of the attack. A video of the ship in dry dock shows the hole below the waterline to be much larger than the initial assessment.

References

{{Ship-stub 2014 ships Ships built in Russia Ships of Russia Oil tankers Maritime incidents in 2023 Ships involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

History

See also

References