Satellite photos show the aftermath of a strike on Russian ships in the Black Sea

Ukraine has released satellite images that it says show the impact of a stealth drone attack on Russian Black Sea Fleet ships in Crimea.

Kiev’s military intelligence, GUR, wrote on Friday on two sinking to the bottom of the sea. News week attempts to justify these assertions.

kyiv has stepped up its attacks on the peninsula, which it has pledged to retake from Russia as one of its war objectives. Satellite images last month showed Russia’s Black Sea Fleet fleeing the port of Sevastopol in Crimea towards Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia and the Russian naval port of Feodosia in the annexed peninsula in the middle of a series of targeted attacks.

A few days earlier, on September 22, kyiv launched a missile attack on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, killing several senior officers.

The minute-long video released Friday purports to show a drone approaching the two small Russian landing craft near Uzka Bay. This is followed by smoke rising into the night sky. The GUR then published a satellite image showing, it said, a damaged ship and a burned pier. The ships were identified as a Project 1176 Akula-class small landing ship and a Project 11770 Serna-class small landing ship. News week has not yet independently verified the details of Friday’s video.

The GUR said that in addition to the crew on board, the Serna-class ship was loaded with armored vehicles, including BTR-82 armored personnel carriers.

Moscow has previously used Serna-class ships to provide cover for Russian Black Sea Fleet ships during raids when Russian forces lacked naval air defense equipment, the GUR added.

Kremlin-affiliated military blogger Rybar said Ukraine carried out the strike using four unmanned boats, in what was one of three attacks on Crimea that day.

The channel added that Ukrainian forces attempted to carry out a drone strike on an oil depot in the city of Feodosia and a Neptune cruise missile strike on naval and intelligence bases in Chornomorsk. However, the Russian Defense Ministry said that air defense managed to intercept these missiles. News week emailed the Department of Defense for comment.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its update that Ukraine has been waging an interdiction campaign against Russian military infrastructure in Crimea since June, particularly against the Black Sea Fleet.

This is an attempt “to degrade the Russian military’s ability to use Crimea as a staging and rear zone for Russian operations in southern Ukraine,” added the independent US-based think tank. UNITED STATES.

Alexander Musienko, director of the Kiev-based Military Legal Research Center, told Current Time TV that the strike was part of a systematic approach to Ukraine. He added that there had already been strikes against the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in September and against the Kerch Bridge this month.

“This is the implementation of a strategy aimed at establishing Ukraine’s dominance in the northwestern part of the Black Sea,” Musienko told the independent Russian-language media outlet.

“The purpose of these attacks is nothing more than a demonstration of naval warfare. And Ukraine is waging this naval war with the means at our disposal, including surface drones,” Musienko added.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister who now advises the country’s defense ministry, said News week that kyiv plans to eventually liberate Crimea.

“The only way out of this situation is to destroy the Black Sea Fleet, destroy its ability to continue the occupation of the Black Sea and restore freedom of navigation,” Zagorodnyuk said.