By Kanyshai Butun
ISTANBUL (AA) - The tankers attacked near the Caspian Pipeline Consortium marine terminal on Jan.13 were not part of the "shadow fleet," Kazakhstan's Energy Minister, Yerlan Akkenzhenov said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a briefing in the Majilis, the lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament, Akkenzhenov said the tankers, identified as Matilda and Delta Harmony, were “easily identifiable.”
"They had their transponders on. Their names were legible and easily identified. This means that these tankers did not belong to any, so to speak, shadow fleet," he said.
He underlined that the strikes on the vessels did not affect loading, but did impact insurance costs.
On Jan. 13, Kazakhstan announced that two tankers involved in the export of crude oil were hit by drones in the Black Sea near the CPC terminal, located close to the Russian port city of Novorossiysk.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the tankers, though Russia accused Ukraine of striking at least one of the vessels, the Maltese-flagged Matilda. "The tanker Matilda, flying the flag of Malta, was attacked by two Ukrainian attack drones at a distance of about 100 km from the city of Anapa, Krasnodar region," Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
The Jan. 13 incident was not the first drone attack near CPC facilities. Since November 2025, several oil tankers have been targeted in similar drone strikes. Russia has accused Ukraine of orchestrating the strikes, claiming the objective is to drive up insurance premiums and thereby disrupt deliveries by making them prohibitively expensive.
The CPC's infrastructure has been attacked multiple times, including an incident when a single-point mooring unit was damaged by unmanned boats. Russia blamed Ukraine for the strike, and Kazakhstan protested what it called a "deliberate attack," urging Kyiv to prevent such incidents in the future.
In response, Kyiv said it noted Astana's concerns regarding CPC infrastructure and reiterated that its operations are not directed against Kazakhstan or any third party, but are aimed solely at “repelling full-scale Russian aggression.”
Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yerlan Zhetibayev said the increasing frequency of incidents near CPC facilities points to “growing risks to international energy infrastructure.”