kyiv, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Ukrainian naval drones attacked and sank two small Russian landing craft in Crimea, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Friday.
Reuters was unable to independently verify this information. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which seized and annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and whose Black Sea Fleet is headquartered in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
An initial military intelligence report indicated that the two small Russian amphibious ships had been hit during the night.
An evening update said the attack was carried out by naval drones against the two ships in Vuzka Bay, west of the peninsula. He identified one landing craft as an Akula-class vessel, the other as a Serna-class vessel.
“Intelligence results conducted on November 10, 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after a naval drone attack, two small Russian landing ships were destroyed,” the report said.
“As a result of the attack, both ships sank to the bottom, the Akula immediately and the Serna after trying to save it.”
The Ukrainian military said the ships were crewed and loaded with armored vehicles.
Ukraine says some Russian naval vessels have left Sevastopol following the recent attacks.
Russia began its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched a counter-offensive in the south and east in early June, but faced heavy resistance from forces Russian occupation.
In the latest reports on the fighting, Russian news agency RIA cited the Russian Defense Ministry as saying Russian air defenses shot down two Ukrainian drones over Crimea and one over the Tula region , south of Moscow, Friday morning.
kyiv had no immediate comment and Reuters was unable to verify the information.
Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery and drone attacks killed three people and damaged unspecified infrastructure, power lines and a gas pipeline in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions.
Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Ron Popeski and Grant McCool
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