KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian navy drones attacked and sank two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, the Ukrainian military intelligence agency said on Friday.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the report. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and whose Black Sea fleet is based in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
A preliminary report from military intelligence said that the two small Russian amphibious ships were bombed during the night.
An evening update stated that the attack was carried out by naval drones on the two ships in the Gulf of Fozca on the western side of the peninsula. One landing craft was identified as an Akula-class ship, and the other was a Serna-class ship.
“Intelligence results conducted on November 10, 2023 near Vozka Bay in the temporarily occupied Crimean Peninsula show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships were destroyed,” the report stated.
“As a result of the attack, both ships sank to the bottom, Akula immediately, and Serna after attempts to save her.”
The Ukrainian military said the ships were manned and loaded with armored vehicles.
Ukraine says some Russian naval ships have moved from Sevastopol after the recent attacks.
Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine began a counteroffensive in the south and east in early June, but faced strong resistance from Russian occupation forces.
In the latest combat reports, the RIA news agency quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying that Russian air defenses shot down two Ukrainian drones over the Crimean Peninsula and one over the Tula region south of Moscow early on Friday.
Kiev did not immediately comment and Reuters was unable to verify the report.
Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery and drone attacks killed three people and caused unspecified damage to infrastructure, power lines and a gas pipeline in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions.
Report by Pavel Polityuk. Edited by Ron Popeski and Grant McCall
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