This is the umpteenth victim of Ukrainian strikes against the Black Sea Fleet. And not the least illustrious, since it is the Kommouna, the oldest military ship in service in the world. Not surprising since it was launched in 1913, when the tsars (the real ones, not Vladimir Putin) still governed Russia.
It was the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense which announced on Sunday X that it had hit this rescue catamaran of the Russian military fleet in the Black Sea. “Today the Ukrainian Navy hit the Russian rescue ship Kommouna in temporarily occupied Crimea,” the ministry said. The nature of the damage is currently being verified. Ukrainian navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said he did not know the precise nature of the damage caused by the attack, but that the ship was “no longer capable of performing its tasks.”
Launched in 1915 under the name VolkhovTHE Kommouna, renamed in 1922, took part in both world wars. In the first, she served as a supply and relief ship for Russian submarines in the Baltic Sea. During the Second, he participated in the defense of Leningrad, besieged by the Germans, by towing Russian vehicles and tanks that fell into Lake Ladoga which served as a supply artery for the former capital of the tsars, reports The sailor.
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Then in 1967, the Kommouna left the cold waters of the Baltic for the warmer waters of the Black Sea, where he was still assigned to rescue operations until today. He is moreover intervened on the wreck of the Moscowthe flagship of the Black Sea Fleet sunk on April 14, 2022 by Ukraine, helping in the search for bodies, weapons and valuable materials.
Faced with the Ukrainian threat, the Russians had withdrawn the majority of their fleet out of range of kyiv’s missiles, but not the Kommouna which had remained docked in Sebastopol. To his greatest misfortune.