An explosion occurred on an oil tanker at the Ust-Luga port in northwest Russia in the morning of Feb. 9, prompting an evacuation of the crew, according to the country's Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport (Rosmorrechflot).

A 22-year-old suezmax tanker suffered an engine room explosion in the Russian port of Ust Luga on Sunday, forcing its crew to leave the vessel and go ashore. The incident took place in the morning of 9 February, during engine start-up of the 164,500-dwt Koala (built 2003), according to the governor of Leningrad region Alexander Drozdenko.

A heavily-laden Russian oil tanker ran aground in the Baltic Sea in northern Russia on Sunday, according to media reports. In the latest incident involving a Russian vessel, the Koala was carrying 130,

Poland is finally set to move a Russian tanker stuck at the port of Gdynia for nearly eight years. The 22,700-dwt Khatanga (built 1987) arrived at the port for repairs in 2017, but was stranded by the bankruptcy of its Russian owner Murmansk Shipping Co three years later.