Ukraine says Crimea attack caused serious damage to Russian naval targets

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine said it attacked Russian naval targets and port infrastructure on Wednesday morning in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, in what appeared to be the largest attack of the war against the headquarters of the Russian Navy. Black Sea.

A Ukrainian intelligence official said a large ship and a submarine hit in the attack suffered damage so severe that it probably cannot be repaired.

Moscow confirmed the attack on Crimea, captured and annexed by Russia in 2014. It highlighted Kiev’s growing missile capabilities as Russia continues to bombard Ukraine from afar with long-range missiles and assault drones.

“We confirm that a large landing ship and a submarine were hit. We do not comment on the means (used) for the attack,” Ukrainian military intelligence official Andriy Yusov told Reuters, without elaborating on the extent of the damage.

Yusov later told national television: “This is significant damage. Now we can say that with a high probability it cannot be restored.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine had attacked a shipyard in the Black Sea with 10 cruise missiles and three uncrewed fast boats in the early hours, damaging two military vessels that were undergoing repairs.

He said he shot down seven of the incoming missiles and that the attack ships had been destroyed by a Russian patrol.

An image that circulated online and was verified by Reuters showed a docked ship that had suffered extensive damage.

Yuri Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force, was cautious about Russia’s claim that its units had shot down most of the incoming missiles.

“It’s hard to say how many they were able to shoot down,” Ihnat told national television. “It’s important not to underestimate their anti-aircraft units. Maybe they destroyed them. Maybe not.”

GREATEST ATTACK

Retired Ukrainian navy captain Andriy Ryzhenko, speaking to Reuters by phone, said: “It really is the biggest attack on Sevastopol since the beginning of the war.”

The city is home to the Black Sea Fleet which the Kremlin uses to project power in the Middle East and the Mediterranean and, during the war in Ukraine, to impose a de facto blockade on Ukraine’s maritime food exports through the Turkish Strait.

Ukraine has tried to counter the naval power of the fleet by attacking with marine drones packed with explosives, but Russia has continued to use its warships for missile attacks against Ukraine during the more than 18 months of war.

It was unclear what type of missile kyiv used in the attack on Sevastopol, which is about 300 kilometers (185 miles) from the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, cited by news agencies, later said it had detected and destroyed three uncrewed Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea.

Ryzhenko said Ukraine may have used domestically-made Neptune anti-ship missiles that had been modified to work against ground targets. British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles were another possibility, he said.

British channel Sky News cited anonymous sources who said Storm Shadows were used in the attack.

The West has invested billions of dollars worth of weapons in Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russian forces that have occupied swaths of territory in the south and east since their large-scale invasion in February 2022.

The Ukrainian military, which launched a counteroffensive in early June, took the unusual step of publicly claiming responsibility for the attack, something it does not typically do in attacks against Russia or the Crimean peninsula.

“On the morning of September 13, the Ukrainian armed forces carried out successful attacks against naval assets and port infrastructure of the occupiers at the docks of temporarily occupied Sevastopol,” he said on Telegram.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, governor of Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city and a major Moscow-installed Black Sea port, said on Telegram that at least 24 people had been injured.

He posted a nighttime photograph of flames engulfing what appeared to be port infrastructure. Russian Telegram channels posted videos and more photos of flames at a waterside facility.

On the streets of Sevastopol on Wednesday afternoon, residents said the attack had woken them up.

“My son also woke up. It was around 3 in the morning. We were very scared. Everything was shaking,” said Nadezhda Lunyova.

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