Ukraine’s security service and navy claimed to have used an unmanned boat, known as a sea drone, to scupper a landing ship in Russia’s Black sea port of Novorossiysk, as on-board camera footage emerged of an apparent twilight attack. The 112 metre long Olenegorsky Gornyak from Russia’s Northern Fleet, which has been used to transport troops and military hardware into occupied Ukrainian ports, was said by officials in Kyiv to be sufficiently damaged to have been put out of combat action.
The claim came as images emerged of both a Russian war ship tilting to its side and then footage from the head of the marine drone of it apparently moving stealthy across the Black Sea towards the ship and then striking it at its centre. The images could not be immediately independently verified. Earlier, Russia’s defence ministry had claimed that they had successfully destroyed two unmanned sea boats targeting the Russian naval base overnight. The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk hosts the terminus of a pipeline that carries most Kazakh oil exports through Russia.
