In the Black Sea, several oil rigs are producing oil and gas - claims Russia. Ukraine, on the other hand, is convinced that these are Russian Navy bases. According to one report, she opened fire on a platform for the second time in a few days.
According to a media report, Ukrainian forces have again fired on a gas production platform in the Black Sea. This is reported by the Russian news agency Tass, citing representatives of the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Nobody was injured. It is not known if a fire broke out.
According to the Crimean representative, it is one of the drilling platforms that were attacked last Monday. According to the information, there were 109 people on board the islands at the time. Three of them were injured, seven more are missing. According to the report, the search work will continue.
The platforms are said to be mobile jack-up platforms that have lowerable legs that can be sunk into the seabed. They are operated by the Chernomorneftegaz company, which is based in the Crimean capital of Simferopol and exploits several gas and oil fields in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The company is actually a subsidiary of the Ukrainian energy group Naftogaz. After the Russian annexation of Crimea, it was confiscated by the separatist regional parliament. In December 2015, with the help of the Russian military, Chernomorneftegaz towed two oil rigs off the coast of Crimea that were supposed to be exploiting a gas field in the waters off the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odessa.
According to Russian information, the production of the production platforms had to be stopped after the shelling on Monday. Ukraine, on the other hand, is convinced that they are currently not being used to extract gas, but are being used by the Russian military. Air defense equipment, among other things, is stored on the oil rigs, said the spokesman for the Odessa military administration, Serhiy Brachuk, after the attack last Monday. He described the platforms, on which a radar station is said to be located, as "the eyes and ears of the Russian Black Sea Fleet".
The fact that the drilling platforms are now 122 kilometers from the Crimean coast in the Black Sea fits in with this description. This is indicated, among other things, by freely accessible satellite images that were shared on Twitter. In this way, Russia wants to "gain full control over the north-western part of the Black Sea," said the spokesman for the Odessa military administration, Bratschuk, during the week.
