Ukraine says it has put Russian warship out of action in sea drone attack
Ukraine’s security service and navy has claimed to have used an unmanned boat, known as a sea drone, to scupper a landing ship in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, as onboard camera footage emerged of an apparent twilight attack.
The 112-metre-long Olenegorsky Gornyak from Russia’s Northern Fleet, which has been used to transport troops and military hardware into occupied Ukrainian ports, was said by officials in Kyiv to have been sufficiently damaged to have been put out of combat action.
Images emerged of a Russian warship tilting to its side and then footage from the head of the marine drone appearing to show it moving stealthily across the Black Sea towards the ship and striking it at its centre. The images could not be immediately independently verified.
Earlier, Russia’s defence ministry had claimed it had destroyed two unmanned sea boats targeting the Russian naval base overnight.
A Ukrainian security source told Reuters this assertion was false.
“As a result of the attack, the Olenegorsky Gornyak received a serious breach and currently cannot conduct its combat missions,” the source said. “All the Russian statements about a ‘repelled attack’ are fake.”
The port of Novorossiysk hosts the terminus of a pipeline that carries most Kazakh oil exports through Russia. It handles 2% of the world’s oil supply and exports grain.
The fuel hub’s operator, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, lifted a ban on ship movements by mid-morning local time to allow oil tankers to be moored at the terminal.
The Olenegorsky Gornyak is a Ropucha-class project 775 large landing ship, built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, with a capacity to carry a 450-ton cargo and 25 armoured personnel carriers.
It has a crew of about 100 people and is one of three landing ships that has been permanently on the Black Sea since Russia started its full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022.
It was later reported that a large Russian naval vessel had to be towed ashore because it could not move under its own power after being damaged.
The Russian Tass news agency said Russian air defences had downed 10 Ukrainian drones over Crimea on Friday morning and suppressed three more with electronic countermeasures.
Photographs were issued by the Kremlin of the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and Sergei Rudskoy, the head of the main operational directorate of the armed forces general staff, visiting frontline headquarters at an unspecified location said to be in occupied Ukraine.
Russian state media reported that Shoigu had received an update on the situation on the front and “thanked commanders and soldiers … for successful offensive operations” in Lyman in eastern Ukraine.