Russian ships in Sevastopol hit by missile attack despite camouflage

• The Russians have long feared losing warships to Ukrainian drone attacks.
• They even painted some ships with camouflage stripes, hoping to confuse the drones’ sensors.
• But the latest Ukrainian missile attack on a shipyard in Sevastopol damaged two ships anyway.

The success of the latest from Ukraine missile attack on an important shipyard in Russian-controlled Crimea seems to show how useless Russia’s defenses were.

In June, HI Sutton open source naval researcher Dark bands of paint were seen on Russian warships in Sevastopol, which at the time were thought to be a form of camouflage used for confuse Ukrainian maritime drones.

At least four ships had these paint stripes, including the Russian frigate Admiral Essen, seen via satellite images in the port of Sevastopol in Crimea on June 22.

“It seems that in this case, the camouflage is mainly aimed at ensuring that, at very long distances, a low-quality electro-optical sensor cannot distinguish the vessel from background noise,” Sidharth Kaushala maritime energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London told Insider in July.

If the Russians thought paint would provide enough defense, Ukraine proved them wrong this week.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol, a city in Russian-controlled Crimea, was attacked by missiles in the early hours of Wednesday.

Two ships were damaged while being repaired, according to a statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The statement does not specify which vessels were hit in the attack.

According to images and photographs of the explosion, the two targets hit by the missiles appeared to be a submarine and a landing craft. It is unclear whether the two ships hit in Wednesday’s attack had camouflage stripes painted on them.

Ukraine’s plans to attack Sevastopol and the Russian Navy fleet have been slow in coming. They date back to September 2022, when Elon Musk refused to activate access to Starlink satelliteswhich could have been used for guide Ukrainian drones to their targets in Crimeaaccording to an extract from Walter Isaacson-Book written about Musk.

Musk, for his part, has defended his decision not to activate access to Starlink in Crimea.

In an appearance on a podcast uploaded to X on Tuesday, Musk said that allowing such an attack, in his opinion, could have resulted in a “mini Pearl Harbor” and “a massive escalation of hostilities.”

One year later, the same type of attack happened anyway.

Representatives from Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to an Insider request for comment sent outside normal business hours.