Ukraine’s military has said it has destroyed a Russian landing ship stationed in the Crimean port city of Feodosia, with video footage showing an extensive fire in the port area.
The air force said it struck the Novocherkassk navy ship, which was stationed in Crimean waters controlled by Russia.
“The fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller! Thanks to the air force pilots and everyone involved for the filigree work!” the commander of Ukraine’s air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Footage circulating on several Russian news outlets on Telegram showed powerful explosions and fires over a port area.
An unverified daytime photograph, which Russian prowar bloggers said showed the ship’s remains, depicted a charred, extended clump of debris emerging out of the water by a dock.
Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement that the Novocherkassk landing ship was “damaged” by Ukrainian guided missiles launched by aircraft, adding that one person was killed and two injured in the attack.
Earlier in the day, the Russia-appointed head of occupied Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said in a statement on Telegram that there had been “an enemy attack in [the] Feodosia area”, adding that “detonation has stopped and the fire has been localised”.
The Ukrainian military said the ship was carrying Iranian-made Shahed attack drones that Moscow has extensively used in this war.
Commenting on the strike, the Ukrainian president, Volodmyr Zelenskiy, joked that he was “thankful” to his country’s air force “for the impressive replenishment of the Russian underwater Black Sea fleet with another vessel”.
“The occupiers will not have a single peaceful place in Ukraine,” he said.
Moscow is believed to have already withdrawn a significant bulk of its Black Sea fleet from its main base in Crimea after a series of Ukrainian missile and drone strikes last autumn and summer.
The British defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said the latest developments indicated that Russia’s dominance in the Black Sea “is now challenged”.
“This latest destruction of Putin’s navy demonstrates that those who believe there’s a stalemate in the Ukraine war are wrong,” Shapps said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
“They haven’t noticed that over the past four months, 20% of Russia’s Black Sea fleet has been destroyed.”
In a separate statement on Monday, the Ukrainian military said it had shot down five Russian fighter jets in three days, which, if confirmed, would mark one of the biggest weekly losses for the Russian air force since the war began.
Praising Monday’s jet strikes announcement, Zelenskiy said in his message to the country: “This Christmas sets the right mood for the whole next year.
“Every Russian pilot must make a clear choice whether to continue participating in this war,” he added.
The significant losses of Russian military hardware in less than a week offer a rare bright spot for Ukraine, whose forces have moved on to the defensive across multiple fronts after a largely failed summer counteroffensive.
Earlier this week, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Vladimir Putin in a meeting that its forces had gained full control of Maryinka in Ukraine’s east, marking one of Moscow’s most significant battlefield gains since last spring.
“Our assault units … have today completely liberated the settlement of Maryinka,” Shoigu told the Russian president in a televised meeting.
Putin said control of the town, about 3 miles south-west of the city of Donetsk, would allow the Russian forces to move enemy combat units away from Donetsk.
Ukraine’s commander in chief on Tuesday conceded that his forces had pulled back to the outskirts of the largely destroyed town of Maryinka.
“We have now moved to the outskirts of Maryinka, and in some places already beyond the boundaries of the settlement,” Valerii Zaluzhnyi said at a press conference in Kyiv.
“We protect every piece of our land but the lives of our soldiers are more important to us,” Zaluzhnyi said, adding that the town “no longer exists” after being destroyed “street by street” by the Russians.
