A tanker that left Russia and ran into trouble off the coast of Senegal in November 2025 appears to have been deliberately targeted by explosives placed in strategic locations on its hull, according to video footage obtained and verified by RFI.
Having left the Russian port of Taman on 21 August, 2025, the Mersin - a tanker operated by Turkish shipping company Besiktas - first stopped in Togo before arriving in Senegalese waters.
In a video seen by RFI, filmed the day after the incident on 28 November 2025, damage to the hull of the Mersin can be seen in four places - two on the port side and two on the starboard side - which caused the ship to take on water in its engine room.
The holes, the largest of which is more than a metre wide, reveal the ship's partially damaged piping.
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The images suggest the ship was sabotaged using strategically placed explosive devices.
According to several military experts, the precise nature of the holes, their location below the waterline and the spread of micro-cracks around the main impact points all point to the use of magnetic mines planted by trained divers.
The hull is dented inwards at the breach points, also confirms that the shock wave came from outside the ship.
Around 5 kilograms of explosives would have been needed for each hole in order to pierce the ship's hull, which is made of steel plates "between 15 and 20mm thick", according to an engineer specialising in the offshore oil sector, consulted by RFI.
A few days after the incident, the Port Authority of Dakar said divers would inspect the ship, but as yet no official conclusion on the cause of the incident has been made public.
Neutralise not sink
This deliberate targeting of the Mersin's engine room demonstrates a desire to neutralise the ship rather than sink it, along with the 39,000 tonnes of fuel on board.
According to a naval specialist, only a country with advanced diving capabilities and resources would be capable of carrying out such a meticulous operation.
Dark vessels: how Russia steers clear of Western sanctions with a shadow fleet
This is the first time that a ship suspected of belonging to the Russian "shadow fleet" - vessels used to circumvent Western sanctions - has been targeted in African waters.
The Mersin remains moored some 20 kilometres from Senegal's capital, where it has been since the suspected attack.
According to the Port Authority of Dakar, the tanker is now stabilised, after initial fears that the damage could have provoked an oil spill. The breaches have been sealed and the engine room, which was flooded, is being pumped out. However, the fuel on board has not yet been removed.
Going dark
Russia has reportedly built up a flotilla of ageing oil tankers under opaque ownership to circumnavigate sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and the G7 group of nations over Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The EU lists 598 vessels that are banned from European ports and maritime services. The US - which seized a Russian-flagged tanker in the north Atlantic early in January - lists 183 vessels and asserts an extraterritorial right to act against them.
Shadow fleet targeted as EU advances frozen assets plan for Ukraine
According to experts, and a briefing paper by the European Parliament, the "shadow fleet" obscures the ownership of vessels, and ensures the companies managing them are outside Russia and fly flags of convenience - or even sometimes falsely claimed flags.
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In addition, the vessels have been observed turning off their Automatic Identification System, to go "dark" at sea, where ship-to-ship transfers of Russian oil occur.
According to the Kyiv School of Economics, which runs a Russian Oil Tracker, "the top three flags used by Russian shadow-fleet vessels transporting crude oil are false/unknown flag, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon".
It said management companies for the vessels were located in the United Arab Emirates, the Seychelles, Mauritius and the Marshall Islands, among others.
With newswires, and partially adapted from this article in French by Pauline Le Troquier, RFI correspondent in Dakar.
