The Aframax Rio oil tanker caught fire off the Russian city of Sochi on the Black Sea on Tuesday evening, 6 October 2026, after being attacked by drone boats, according to Russia’s Transport Ministry, which confirmed that all crew members had been rescued and that no injuries had been reported in initial information.
Details of the attack and the tanker crew’s rescue
The ministry said the tanker, which flies the Liberian flag and was carrying a cargo of oil, was attacked while it was off the Black Sea coast. It added that its crew comprised 23 people, all Indian nationals, and that they had all been rescued. The attack caused a fire on board the tanker, with oil burning openly in the surrounding sea area.
Circulating footage showed flames and thick columns of black smoke rising, visible from various areas along the Sochi coast. Russia’s Transport Ministry said rescue vessels had been unable to approach the tanker safely because of the intensity of the fire. It said direct firefighting operations would begin once the flames had subsided to a level allowing specialist vessels to approach the site, stressing that the forces and equipment needed to deal with the incident’s consequences were available.
Russian Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin held a meeting of the operations team tasked with managing the aftermath of the attack and overseeing rescue and firefighting efforts. The relevant authorities are assessing the tanker’s condition and monitoring the fire while awaiting suitable conditions for a field intervention near the vessel.
Sochi beaches and waterfronts closed
In Sochi, Mayor Andrey Proshunin announced temporary restrictions on access to waterfronts and beaches, based on a decision by the city’s operations team. He urged residents and visitors not to enter the closed areas and to wait for an official announcement authorising their reopening. The operations team included representatives of security agencies, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry, the meteorological and environmental monitoring service, and consumer protection authorities.
Specialist teams began monitoring air and water quality, calculating the direction in which combustion products were spreading and carrying out a field assessment of the situation along the coast. The administration of the federal Sirius district also temporarily closed the beaches and urged residents and visitors to reduce the time they spent outdoors and keep windows closed as much as possible.
Administration head Dmitry Pleshkin later said measurements of air pollutants remained below the maximum permitted levels and did not pose a threat to health, according to the published monitoring results.
The Aframax Rio is subject to Ukrainian sanctions imposed on 12 February 2026, after Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council included it on a list of vessels it said were linked to the transport of Russian oil. No Ukrainian party had claimed responsibility for the attack by the time the official Russian statements on the incident were issued.
