Moscow Paper Claims Ukrainian Drones Hit Russia-Linked Oil Tanker Off West Africa

All eyes are on Russia this week as talks center on a potential Ukraine peace deal that shifts to Moscow. U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is en route today and expected to meet with President Vladimir Putin to discuss a Washington-backed, 19-point framework aimed at ending the war. 

As Witkoff and Putin discuss a potential peace deal today, pressure on Russia’s shadow tanker fleet appears to be intensifying and broadening. 

Ukrainian drones struck two tankers in the Black Sea last week, and now the Russian business daily Kommersant reports that Ukrainian drones off the West Coast of Africa hit another tanker carrying Russian oil. 

“The M/T MERSIN tanker, carrying Russian oil, was attacked by Ukrainian drones off the coast of Senegal, Deniz Haber reported on November 30,” Kommersant wrote in a report. 

Alarming signs that the battlefield is widening far beyond Eastern Europe. 

Ukraine and its Western allies have spent the past several years targeting Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure with kamikaze aircraft and naval drones in an effort to pressure Moscow’s finances. This campaign, accompanied by sanctions, has yet to collapse Russia financially.

However, the Senegal attack only suggests that Ukraine is stopping at nothing to disrupt Russia’s shadow fleet of tankers that fuel profits for Moscow, and in return, fund the war in Ukraine. 

Notice that Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil and gas infrastructure jumped to a record last month. The timing comes just as Trump is attempting to bring an end to the nearly four-year war.

The expanding battlefield is a major warning sign.