Russia claims to have fended off a Ukrainian attack on the naval base in Novorossiysk. It would be the first Ukrainian attack on the Black Sea coast site. There was no official reaction from Kiev.
Ukraine has apparently attacked the Russian port of Novorossiysk with drones. A Russian naval ship was damaged, according to the Reuters news agency from the Ukrainian secret service. “As a result of the attack, the ‘Olenegorski Gornjak’ was severely damaged and is currently unable to carry out its combat missions,” an agency insider said.
Ukraine has not officially commented on a possible attack. However, a video of the operation shows how a sea drone from the SBU secret service, loaded with 450 kilograms of explosives, attacked the enemy ship, several Ukrainian media quoted an informant as saying. The ship is said to have had a crew of around 100 men.
In the published video, the attack can be seen from a drone perspective until just before the ship’s wall. It is said to have been a joint operation by the SBU and the Ukrainian Navy, according to the media in Kiev. Later pictures showed the 1976 commissioned landing ship “Olenegorski Gornjak” in an inclined position in the Bay of Novorossiysk.
Russia claims to have fended off the attack
Russia also reports a Ukrainian attack on the naval base in Novorossiysk. According to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, two sea drones approached the port city on the southern Russian mainland during the night. Russian guard boats then opened fire and destroyed the unmanned objects. According to Russian information, there was no damage.
It would be the first Ukrainian attack on Novorossiysk. Located in the Krasnodar region, the port city is a base for the Russian Black Sea Fleet and an important location for oil exports. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which loads oil in Novorossiysk, announced that shipping traffic there was temporarily suspended.
The Russian military also reported that more than a dozen Ukrainian drones had allegedly been repelled during the night over the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
Russia accuses Ukraine of multiple attacks
Only at the beginning of the week did Russia, which itself bombs Ukrainian Black Sea ports on a much larger scale and with much more devastating consequences, accused Kiev of attempting to attack ships with sea drones not far from the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow had annexed in 2014.
More than 17 months after the start of the Russian war of aggression, the situation in the Black Sea is particularly tense after Moscow canceled an agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain a few weeks ago. Since then, the Russian military has repeatedly bombed Ukrainian coastal regions, severely damaging port infrastructure and storage facilities for agricultural products.