An official in Italy, one of nine EU countries to write a joint letter to the European Commission urging action, has called the Arctic Metagaz an "environmental bomb" waiting to go off. The tanker, part of a shadow fleet transporting sanctioned Russian oil and gas, was badly damaged in a suspected sea drone attack near Maltese waters earlier this month. Speaking on Italy's Radio 24, the secretary of Italy's Council of Ministers, Alfredo Mantovano, said the risks from the tanker were "enormous" and warned that it could "explode at any moment". An official in Rome told the BBC it also had 450 tonnes of fuel oil and 250 tonnes of diesel on board. On Tuesday afternoon the tanker was about 45 nautical miles (83km) from Italian territorial waters and 25 miles from the search-and-rescue zone ascribed to Libya. Russia has also been bombing Ukraine's civilian energy infrastructure since the start of its full-scale invasion, leaving huge numbers of people without hot water or heating in the depths of winter.