Censor.NET says Russians hit a civilian tug; three reports say a drone hit the cargo ship TEDY

The toll is the one thing agreed. Two Azerbaijani citizens killed, two more hospitalised, in an attack on a vessel off Odesa on 9 September. All four reports we hold give that count. Vot Tak sources it to Azerbaijan's foreign ministry on 10 September; Suspilne puts the two wounded in hospital in Chornomorsk.

Who fired, and what was hit.

One report of four names Russia. In the other three the drone, or the strike, acts by itself. Censor.NET alone calls the vessel a tug outright, and it puts the attack in a series: "another attack on civilian shipping". OC Media has a series too, with no actor in it — "the latest in a string of attacks on cargo ships in the Black Sea".

Not settled. Whose drone: no report we hold carries a Russian account of the attack. What was hit: tug or cargo ship, and Vot Tak's headline and first line disagree with each other. And the dead: four reports give a nationality and a number, none gives a name.

What this is about. A vessel off Ukraine's Black Sea coast was attacked on 9 September, and two Azerbaijani sailors aboard were killed. Our four reports disagree on what the vessel was and who attacked it.

How it got here. Russia and Ukraine have been at war since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and fighting began in eastern Ukraine; Russia invaded on a full scale on 24 February 2022, and the war has run since. The Odesa region, on Ukraine's north-western Black Sea coast, holds the country's main commercial ports, among them Chornomorsk — where Suspilne says the two wounded sailors are in hospital. The sea route matters because it is how Ukraine ships grain and steel. After the invasion closed the ports, the UN and Turkey brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2022 to let grain ships sail; Russia stopped taking part in July 2023. Ukraine then ran a corridor of its own, hugging its western coast, and merchant ships and port facilities in the area have been hit repeatedly since. OC Media places this attack in "a string of attacks on cargo ships in the Black Sea".

Who is in it. Ukraine holds the coast and the port the wounded were taken to. Russia is the other party to the war, and is the state one of the four reports names as acting. Azerbaijan, an oil-producing former Soviet republic in the South Caucasus, is not a party to the war; it is in this story because its citizens crew foreign-flagged merchant ships. Vot Tak, which did the counting itself, says Azerbaijani citizens have died in air attacks in the war zone more often than other foreign seafarers, and says Azerbaijan's foreign ministry announced these deaths on 10 September.

What is at stake. Whether a shipping lane Ukraine's economy depends on can be used, and whether crews from countries outside the war are safe on it. Who fired decides who has to answer for the deaths.

Where it stands. Two dead, two in hospital. No report we hold carries a Russian account of the attack, and none names the dead.