A sanctioned Russian gas carrier was burning in the central Mediterranean early Tuesday after what multiple sources described as a possible drone attack, marking a potential escalation of Ukraine’s campaign against Moscow’s shadow fleet.
The Arctic Metagaz, a liquefied natural gas tanker under U.S. and U.K. sanctions since 2024, caught fire around 0400 local time southeast of Malta, according to gCaptain. Maritime OSINT analyst H.I. Sutton assessed video footage posted to social media as authentic.
Mediterranean Sea emergency: The Russian gas tanker ARCTIC METAGAZ (IMO 9243148) is on fire off the coast of Libya. The vessel is under sanctions for illegally transporting LNG. A preliminary attack by naval drones and a series of explosions are reported. A massive fire is on… pic.twitter.com/Wh1Y8qIfZf
— EcoProtector (@ProtectorE59290) March 3, 2026
Greece-based Diaplous Group, a maritime security firm, verified the incident to gCaptain. “We can confirm it happened, but we do not know any further details at this time,” a company representative said. EOS Risk Group reported the tanker may have suffered a drone strike while transiting eastbound toward the Suez Canal.
Vessel tracking data cited by The Insider showed the Arctic Metagaz took on cargo at the Saam floating storage unit near Murmansk on February 18 before departing Russia on February 24. The ship’s Automatic Identification System went dark on the evening of March 2, roughly 30 nautical miles northeast of Malta. According to The Insider and gCaptain, Flightradar24 recorded a Turkish Navy ATR 72-600 maritime patrol aircraft orbiting the vessel’s last known coordinates.
The tanker transmitted no distress call. Crew status remains unknown. Malta’s Armed Forces Maritime Squadron did not respond to inquiries.
According to MaltaToday, despite transmitting no distress call, the Armed Forces of Malta eventually confirmed that all 25 crew members were found safe in a lifeboat within the Libyan search-and-rescue zone and transferred to a nearby merchant vessel.
The Arctic Metagaz is among roughly a dozen tankers ferrying LNG from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG-2 project to China’s Beihai terminal. According to The Insider, Ukrainian intelligence has accused the vessel of routinely falsifying AIS position data to obscure its movements, a practice that violates international maritime regulations.
In a report published by The Kyiv Independent, a source told a news outlet the fire may have resulted from a Ukrainian naval drone strike, though Kyiv’s military has not commented. Ukraine’s Security Service previously confirmed a December strike on a shadow fleet tanker in the Mediterranean, the Omani-flagged Qendil, in neutral waters more than 2,000 kilometers from Ukrainian territory. That operation represented Kyiv’s first confirmed attack on a vessel in the region.
