Ukrainian forces hit a Russian-operated drilling rig off the coast of Crimea for a second time over the weekend, Russian state media reported.
The jackup drilling rig Tavrida was hit by a Ukrainian missile, causing a 15-foot hole in the helipad, according to TASS.
No injuries were reported in this strike, unlike the previous round of attacks, a spokesperson for Crimea’s emergency services department said.
Tavrida is reportedly one of the three rigs targeted in an earlier Ukrainian missile strike on June 20. Three people were injured in the first attack and seven remain missing.
As Sergei Askyonov, the Russian-installed head of Crimea, said, Ukraine hit the platform at 0800 local time (0500 GMT), when 109 people were working on platforms in the area.
Satellite imaging appears to indicate that one of the targets (not Tavrida) is still on fire after five days.
Russian officials have expressed concern over Ukrainian military figures saying they would like to target Crimean infrastructure – such as the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia – as part of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south.
At the beginning of June, Ukrainian media published photos of a product tanker that was allegedly hit by cluster submunition and damaged. According to information, a single submunition hit the tanker Brentix towards the bow on the morning of June 1.
