The tanker was the Aframax Rio, a Liberian-flagged oil tanker. Russia’s Transport Ministry said it was set on fire by “unmanned boats” off Sochi on the evening of Tuesday, October 6, 2026, sparking a large oil fire at sea near the settlement of Sirius, where beaches were then closed.
The ministry said all 23 crew members, all Indian citizens, were rescued and that preliminary information showed no casualties. As of October 7, it was not confirmed who carried out the attack; it came the same night Russian authorities reported intercepting almost 900 Ukrainian drones.
Image: The Aframax tanker Torben Spirit at anchor (illustrative, not the Aframax Rio), by Paul Meffin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.