A Russian tanker that Moscow accused Kyiv of sinking on March 4 is still drifting in the Mediterranean, Italy’s civil protection service said on Friday.
The Arctic Metagaz, which was under EU and US sanctions for its role in Russia’s sanctions-busting shadow fleet, was carrying Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Egypt when it was hit. Its crew of 30 Russian nationals were all rescued at the time of the incident.
On March 12, Malta’s port authority said that the wreck of the tanker was drifting between Malta and the Italian island of Lampedusa. According to AFP, Italian officials said on Friday that the tanker is drifting back towards the Libyan coast, where it was originally reported to have been sunk.
The sequence of events that led to the crew abandoning ship remains unclear. Libya’s port authority said at the time that it was hit by “sudden explosions followed by a massive fire, which ultimately led to its complete sinking” north of the port of Sirte.
Russia’s Ministry of Transport accused Ukraine of using sea drones to sink the ship, in what it described as “an act of international terrorism and maritime piracy.”
Even Russian President Vladimir Putin weighed in, describing it as a “terrorist attack,” adding that “this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of thing.”
AFP confirmed that the wreck appears to have been fire-damaged, with parts of the ship blackened and two holes on each side.
Kyiv has not commented on Moscow’s claim that Ukrainian forces attacked the ship – roughly 2,000 kilometers (around 1,200 miles) outside its territory.
If Ukraine did indeed attack the vessel, it may not be unprecedented, however.
A source within Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) told Kyiv Post in December 2025 that it had carried out its first known strike on a tanker belonging to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
The SBU source said in that case that the tanker had been hit by QENDIL aerial drones rather than sea drones, however, which would have to have been launched from the Libyan coast to hit the Arctic Metagaz.
Italian civil protection service press chief Pierfrancesco Demilito said that Italy is unable to confirm what happened to the tanker’s cargo of LNG – although there is so far no evidence of it leaking into the sea.
Although he described the wreck as “potentially dangerous,” Demilito said that “even towing it is a complex operation” due to the possibility that it could still explode.
He said that the tanker is currently in international waters but in Libya’s search and rescue zone, roughly 53 nautical miles north of Tripoli and heading south.
The vessel is “not showing any imminent signs of sinking,” he added.