by A Ukrainian missile attack hit a Russian warship moored in Crimea early Tuesday, in what appeared to be one of the most significant attacks on Moscow’s prized Black Sea Fleet in months amid Kiev’s intensified campaign against the peninsula occupied by Russia.
The Ukrainian Air Force said in a declaration which had destroyed the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, in the port of Feodosia, in southeastern Crimea, during the night. The Russian Defense Ministry said the state news agency Tass that the ship had been damaged in an “aircraft-guided missile” attack, but did not say whether the ship had been permanently disabled.
Videos of the attack that appeared to have been taken by residents and released by the Ukrainian Air Force showed a large explosion that produced a large fireball, followed by a giant cloud of smoke and fire that rose into the night sky.
The images could not immediately be verified, but Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of Crimea, He said the attack had caused a fire in Feodosia. One person was killed and two others were injured in the assault, he added.
The Ukrainian Air Force said it had used cruise missiles in Tuesday’s attack, which took place around 2:30 a.m. local time in southeastern Crimea. Russian Ministry of Defense he told tass that two Ukrainian Su-24 fighter jets involved in the attack on Feodosia had been “destroyed,” a claim the Ukrainian military denied.
While the extent of damage to the ship was not immediately clear, the attack hit what appeared to be a valuable target. Interfax, a Russian news agency, reported that President Vladimir V. Putin was informed of the attack and the damage suffered by the ship.
The 360-foot-long Novocherkassk was capable of carrying up to 10 tanks and several hundred troops, according to russian news media, which reported that he had previously been involved in Russian military operations in Syria. About a month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian Air Force He said he had targeted Novocherkassk in an attack on the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk. In June of that year, tass reported that the ship was part of a group of 12 ships “ready to perform combat tasks in the Black Sea.”
Ukraine’s military said Tuesday it suspected the ship was carrying Iranian-made attack drones for use in the war. Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military in the south, told national television that “it is clear that such a large detonation was caused not only by the ship’s own fuel or ammunition.”
Andrii Klymenko, the head of the Black Sea Institute for Strategic Studies, agreed. “Judging by the video of the explosion, which was very powerful, it carried explosives: either projectiles or missiles or, as some say, drones,” he wrote in a text message.
Klymenko noted that the port of Feodosia was near Cape Chauda, which he said Russia has long used as a launch site for attack drones.
Data collected by your institute. shows that the Ukrainian military carried out at least 155 attacks against Crimea and the Russian Black Sea Fleet from January to October this year, averaging one every two days. Amid the intensification of the campaign, Russia relocated ships from the port of Sevastopol, the fleet’s home port.
Some of those ships, Klymenko said, were moved to the port of Novorossiysk, a Black Sea naval and maritime hub, or to the eastern side of Crimea, which was considered less vulnerable to attacks by Ukrainian maritime drones. But Tuesday’s attack on Feodosia, which is located on the eastern coast of Crimea, underscored that those ports were still at risk.
The attack came as Ukraine signaled it was preparing for a protracted war against Russia. On Monday, the government presented a bill in Parliament which proposes reducing the age of people who can be recruited into the army from 27 to 25 years.
The bill also proposes the introduction of a three-month military training course for all Ukrainians between 18 and 25 years old and changes to the recruitment process.
As the Ukrainian military suffers from a troop shortage to combat repeated attacks from Russia, the recruiting process has come under scrutiny amid reports of erroneous draft notices and coercive mobilization tactics.
military officers has said in recent days that a large-scale mobilization of up to 500,000 soldiers would be necessary. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said a plan still needed to be drawn up before a decision could be made.
