KYIV: Ukraine’s military intelligence has said that it sank a Russian warship off the coast of Crimea overnight into Thursday, landing the latest in a series of blows to Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet after mounting a major missile attack on the occupied peninsula hours earlier.
Russia’s guided missile ship, the “Ivanovets,” suffered multiple damages to its hull before it sank in the harbor of Lake Donuzlav, Crimea’s deepest lake, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence said.
Night-time footage released by Ukraine showed naval drones racing toward the Russian vessel before exploding on impact, causing huge damage to the ship. At the end of the video, the vessel appears to have sunk, with just its bow above water.
The sinking of the Ivanovets is the latest in a series of Ukrainian strikes on Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet, as it attempts to land both symbolic and strategic blows against Russian troops that annexed Crimea in 2014.
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Ukraine has previously said its attacks on Crimea and on Russian vessels are intended to try to isolate the peninsula and make it more difficult for Moscow to sustain its military operations on the Ukrainian mainland, where the front lines have remained mostly static for months.
The most notable of its attacks was the strike on the Moskva in April 2022, which forced Moscow to change the way it operates near to areas controlled by Ukraine. The ship became infamous after it threatened to bomb Snake Island in the Black Sea if the Ukrainian soldiers defending it did not surrender.
Ukraine fires missiles at Crimea
The attack on the Ivanovets came hours after Ukraine on Wednesday fired a barrage of missiles at Crimea, in what Ukraine’s Air Force Commander described as part of “the cleansing of Crimea from the Russian presence.”
Ukraine fired twenty airborne guided missiles at Crimea, with Russian air defenses destroying seventeen of them over the Black Sea and 3 more over the peninsula, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. It said some of the missiles were intercepted near to the Belbek airfield near the city of Sevastopol.
