MOSCOW, April 5 (Reuters) – A cargo ship carrying wheat sank in the Sea of Azov after coming under attack from Ukrainian drones, a Russia-installed official said on Sunday, leaving one person dead and two missing.
Vladimir Saldo, Moscow-installed leader of the Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine’s Kherson region, said the attack occurred on Friday but crew members were unable to make known what had happened to them until Sunday.
“It became known that the reason for the sinking of the Volgo-Balt in the Sea of Azov was a terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime,” Saldo wrote on Telegram.
He said the crew abandoned ship and was only able to reach shore on Sunday near the village of Strilkove in Kherson region.
He said an aide to the captain had died and two people were unaccounted for, adding that an investigation into the incident was under way. The captain was recovering in a hospital.
“This is, unfortunately, not the first instance of Ukraine attacking a merchant ship in neutral waters. There will be a response to this crime,” Saldo said.
In an earlier post, he said nine crew members had been found alive on the shore – all Russian nationals.
Kherson is one of four Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia in 2022, more than six months after Moscow’s invasion. Russian forces hold a little more than 70% of the two regions, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, in the south.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Christina Fincher, Ron Popeski and Mark Porter)
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