Occupation authorities of Crimea blame Armed Forces of Ukraine for Chornomornaftogaz’s drilling rigs missile strike

Sergey Aksyonov, the head of Russian occupation authorities in the temporarily occupied Crimea, said that Ukrainian troops have launched a strike at Chornomornaftogaz’s drilling rigs.

He recorded a video message about it.

Aksonov said that a rescue operation is underway. It involves patrol vessels and aircraft. According to him, 12 people were at these drilling rigs, 5 of them were evacuated.

These are probably the “Petro Hodovanets” and “Ukraine” drilling rigs seized by the invaders in 2014. They are also known as “Boyko Drilling Rigs”.

Official Ukrainian sources have not yet commented on the information about the attack.

Per InformNapalm report, on December 15, 2015, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine announced that “Petro Hodovanets” and “Ukraine” drilling rigs from the Odesa gas field were relocated by the invaders closer to the annexed peninsula. At the same time, their former site was used by the Russian Federation to install the “Tavrida” oil drilling rig transported from the Crimea. “Tavrida” was also illegally abducted in 2014.

At that time Tavrida’s coordinates were W-45º12 ′, D-30º59 ′.

On the map it looks like this.

The Odesa gas field is located on the shelf 150 km west of the Crimea and 130 km south of Odesa.

Previously, the Ukrainian Naval Forces hit a Russian tugboat near the Zmiinyi Island.