Zelensky confirmed the attack on the sanctioned Russian container ship in a post on X, and said the 100,000 tonne capacity Yanina has been “sent to the bottom”.
The ship – owned by Russia’s state-owned nuclear operator Rosatom – was sunk early on Saturday, with all of it’s 17-member crew forced to abandon it.
Rosatom said it had been transporting civilian goods including frozen food and construction materials.
“Such an attack cannot be interpreted as anything other than piracy and robbery,” Rosatom’s CEO Alexey Likhachev said.
Stsana Rosatom, a Russian news outlet for the nuclear industry, reported that the attack took place 130 miles (209km) from Novorossiysk, and all 17 crew members “were in good condition.”
Ukraine has targeted Russian flagged ships in the Black Sea since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. Kyiv has accused Moscow of using it as a way of transporting sanctioned goods, including oil.
The attack on Kyiv comes after Zelensky met President Donald Trump in Washington DC earlier this week to urge the US to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot interceptor missiles.
Asked about the missiles during a cabinet meeting at the Camp David retreat on Friday, Trump said the US had not agreed to Ukraine building Patriot missiles but that talks were ongoing.
He said the US had to be “very careful about letting somebody build them”.
Emphasising concerns about sharing advanced US weaponry, Trump called it “a big step”.
Trump’s latest comments regarding Patriot missiles come weeks after he offered to give Ukraine the right to produce them.
As Russia has stepped up its air attacks, Ukraine has run low on supplies of Patriots, which remain the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing ballistic missiles.