Oman's Maritime Security Center said on Tuesday that a crude oil tanker, which caught fire in its engine room after being attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, was being towed to an Omani port, with two people on board still missing.
In a statement, the center said the the Panama-flagged El Gaia or Algaya was attacked northeast of Oman's Musandam Governorate on the southern shore of the Strait of Hormuz. Oman's Royal Navy has evacuated 23 crew members from the tanker and provided them with necessary medical assistance.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement Monday that the oil tanker exploded and caught fire after striking a naval mine while attempting to pass through a restricted zone south of the Strait of Hormuz.
The statement said that Iran had previously warned about the dangers of "illegal shipping routes," and that the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iran's control and is in a "blockaded state."
The United States denied Iran's account. U.S. Central Command said in a post Monday on social media that the Panama-flagged tanker was hit by an Iranian missile last month and rendered inoperable. Last weekend, when the tanker sat in Omani coastal waters, Iran again attacked it with a drone, it said.
The U.S. side accused Iran of obstructing commercial shipping in the Strait with disinformation and intimidation.
Oil tanker towed toward Omani port after being hit in Strait of Hormuz
Russian political experts said the upcoming talks between Russia, the United States and Ukraine amount to technical consultations, with almost no room for negotiation on core issues, making major breakthroughs unlikely.
The trilateral talks on the Ukraine issue will be held in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, from Tuesday to Wednesday. Security guarantees for the parties, confidence-building measures and humanitarian efforts are among the topics for discussion.
"These are consultations, not negotiations. Discussions are underway on important, but in principle, technical questions. That is, they will not talk about territories, they will not talk about the nature of the regime, they will not talk about Ukraine's internal rules regarding language and Russian culture," said Dmitry Trenin, chairman of the Russian International Affairs Council.
"In my view, the Ukrainian side is not independent. The shadow of the European Union is always looming there. And in current conditions, the Europeans, by and large, do not want to make concessions to Russia," said Andrey Sidorov, associate professor at the History Department of Moscow State University.
Russian President Vladimir Putin set out Moscow's position at a meeting with the Foreign Ministry leadership in June 2024, saying Russia would declare a ceasefire and begin talks as soon as Ukrainian forces withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and Kiev announces it will not join NATO.
"When our president articulated these demands, a corresponding caveat was made - that if you do not meet us halfway now, our positions may harden according to the real situation on the ground. And Ukraine and the West are letting the time slip away," said Andrey Koshkin, head of the Department of Political Analysis and Socio-Psychological Processes at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
Ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks, a humanitarian operation was carried out in the city of Oleshky in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, evacuating hundreds of civilians to safe locations.
According to Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, Russia prioritizes achieving its goals by peaceful means. On Friday, Putin also invited members of the Russian negotiation team to a meeting with Federal Security Council members to discuss the upcoming trilateral talks.
"It can be said with certainty that we will definitely not compromise on territories. But for everything else -- the size of the Ukrainian army, the security zone, security guarantees for Ukraine from the West, they can be discussed," said Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Russian experts expect little breakthrough from Russia-U.S.-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi
