Russia claims to foil Ukrainian assault on patrol ship close to Black Sea gasoline pipelines

By Reuters: Russia stated on Sunday that Ukraine had made unsuccessful try to assault a Russian naval ship with six high-speed drone boats because the Russian vessel patrolled main pure gasoline pipelines within the Black Sea.

The ‘Priazovye’ ship was finishing up what Russia’s defence ministry stated was “monitoring of the situation and ensuring security along the routes of the TurkStream and Blue Stream gas pipelines in the southeastern part of the Black Sea.”

Ukraine attacked within the early hours of Sunday about 300 km south-east of Sevastopol, the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, the defence ministry stated.

At the time of the assault, a US RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane was within the central space of the Black Sea, the defence ministry stated.

“The Black Sea Fleet ship ‘Priazovye’ continues to carry out its assigned tasks,” the defence ministry stated.

Russia and Turkey formally launched TurkStream with capability of 31.5 billion cubic metres per yr in January 2020. The pipeline, which permits Moscow to bypass Ukraine as a transit path to Europe, carries Russian pure gasoline to southern Europe by means of the Black Sea and Turkey.

The Blue Stream pipeline delivers Russian gasoline to Turkey.