Oil tankers and cargo ships passing through the Bosphorus Strait appear there adorned with rubber, protective nets, and water tanks, thus trying to protect themselves in case of an impact with Russian or Ukrainian drones in the Black Sea, notes Agerpres.
Russia and Ukraine are mutually attacking each other’s ships and port infrastructures, aiming to paralyze each other’s international trade. In a clear illustration of the risks, a Russian cargo ship, Omsk-107, abandoned and with a burnt deck after being hit by a Ukrainian drone, drifted from the Russian waters of the Black Sea and almost reached a beach north of Istanbul.
An oil tanker under the Sierra Leone flag, Caruzo, passed through the Bosphorus Strait on August 11 with water tanks hanging on the side, apparently in an attempt to cushion a blow and prevent damage to the engine room in case of a drone attack. Another oil tanker, Khrizopraz, under the Russian flag, was covered with tires when it crossed the strait on August 27.
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However, improvisations do not protect them from larger drones.
Two other oil tankers, Brisk and Integrator, passed through the Bosphorus last month covered with protective nets, another ingenious method of protecting the superstructure in the event of an impact with explosive drones.
“Such tools can be effective for smaller types of drones, but less so, or not at all, for larger military drones,” explains the CEO of the maritime security center Dryad Global, Corey Ranslem, an opinion shared by other specialists.
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