PREVIEW

This image, shared by Ukrainian military adviser Serhii Sternenko, claims to show a Russian-flagged liquefied natural gas tanker after being hit in the Mediterranean Sea earlier this week.

The vessel, Arctic Metagaz, which is subject to wide-ranging international sanctions, was sailing between Malta and Libya when the incident occurred on 3 March.

Sternenko, wrote on Twitter/X: “This is a Russian gas tanker in the Mediterranean Sea. Was. The Russian shadow fleet is joint with the Iranian one. Two countries from the axis of evil use the same ships. They should burn. They are already burning.”

According to reports by The Times of Malta and Reuters, sources said the tanker was likely struck by a drone at about 04:00 local time.

The Armed Forces of Malta said they received a distress call and dispatched units to the scene. Reuters reported that the ship’s 30 crew members, all Russian nationals, abandoned the vessel and were later rescued from a lifeboat within the Libyan search-and-rescue zone.

Tracking data suggests the tanker may have attempted to conceal its movements. Information from Starboard Maritime Intelligence indicates that the Arctic Metagaz switched off its Automatic Identification System on the evening of 2 March, shortly after leaving Malta’s exclusive economic zone.

The Arctic Metagaz is regarded as part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, a network of vessels used to circumvent Western energy sanctions. Ukrainian military intelligence has previously linked the tanker to the transport of LNG from the sanctioned Arctic LNG-2 project to China’s Beihai terminal.

The ship is reported to have loaded cargo from the Saam floating storage unit near Murmansk on 18 February, before sailing around the United Kingdom and Spain and entering the Mediterranean.

It is currently under sanctions imposed by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.