Ukraine says it used sea drones to strike two oil tankers that are part of Russia’s sanctioned shadow fleet and were a few dozen kilometres off the coast of Turkey.

Blasts rocked two tankers from Russia's shadow fleet in the Black Sea near Turkey's Bosphorus strait on Friday, causing fires on the vessels, and rescue operations were launched for those on board, Turkish authorities and sources said.

Two tankers long associated with sanctioned Russian oil trades caught fire on Friday in separate incidents in the Black Sea, prompting large-scale rescue operations by Turkish authorities and deepening anxieties in a region already troubled by naval mines and shadow-fleet activity.

On November 16, spectacular footage of NATO's Aegir 25 exercise, which took place near Andfjord, Norway, was shown on the Web. During maneuvers at sea, the KNM Uthaug submarine fired a torpedo at the KNM Trondheim frigate, literally tearing it apart.