Russia just killed another sailor on a foreign cargo ship in Odesa
1 hour ago · 3 October 2026Share
Cargo Ship Yantian Sea. File photo. Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA · CC BY 2.0
Russia just hit another civilian cargo ship in Odesa.
This one was flying the Liberian flag.
One crew member is dead. He was a motorman, working in the engine room.
Three more crew members are hurt.
Thirteen others got off the ship alive.
The Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority says all this happened a few hours ago.
So what don't we know? The ship's name. Where the dead and injured sailors are from. The exact spot in the port where it was hit. None of that has come out yet.
The Sea Ports Authority isn't calling this a one-off. It says quote "Russia continues to terrorize the peaceful merchant fleet and sailors."
So that's a state shipping authority, on the record, accusing Russia of going after ordinary sailors. Not soldiers.
And there's a paper trail behind that claim.
On the night of 23 September, Russian forces hit a ship flying the flag of Antigua and Barbuda. Its captain was killed. A fire broke out on board.
On 17 September, a Russian drone hit a Tanzanian-flagged ship heading into a Ukrainian port. Its captain was killed too. Three crew were hurt.
On 10 September, a strike hit a tugboat called the Tedy, flying the Somalia flag, in the Odesa region. Two Azerbaijani crew members died. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry named them: Aslan Aliyev and Asim Gasimov. Eight more people on that tugboat were wounded.
And back in June, a strike on a commercial ship killed five more Azerbaijani sailors.
So add it up. That's at least five ships, five different flags, in four months.
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Odessa seaport. File photo. Alexey M. · CC BY-SA 4.0
Recent months have also seen strikes on ships in Black Sea transit lanes kill at least five Indian sailors. India has protested to both Moscow and Kyiv over it.
Here's the thing. None of these are Ukrainian ships. None of them are Russian ships either.
They're foreign merchant ships, crewed by sailors from countries that aren't even part of this war.
Ukraine's Ministry of Recovery, Infrastructure and Transport says Russia is systematically going after Ukrainian port infrastructure and civilian merchant ships.
Now here's Russia's side of it.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesperson, has said commercial ships are being used to carry weapons, ammunition and fuel for Ukraine's military. He says Russian forces will keep destroying that shipping. He's called it payback for Ukraine's long-range strikes on Russia's refineries and economic sites.
So that's Russia's standing excuse for hitting ships like this one.
Ukraine and international maritime bodies reject that completely. They say these are ordinary merchant ships moving grain and bulk cargo, operating under international maritime law like any commercial ship anywhere else in the world.
Russia hasn't said a word about today's strike specifically.
Step back and the picture is a blockade. Russia has effectively renewed its blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports since the summer. That's cutting into the grain and steel Ukraine ships out to the rest of the world.
Every ship that still sails into Odesa now sails in knowing what happened to the last one.
What we don't know is whether this ship was picked out on purpose, or just caught in a wider strike on the port. Russia hasn't said. Nobody outside Moscow can answer that yet.
Thirteen sailors walked off that ship alive this morning.
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