Ukraine’s army intelligence service claims that it has sunk a Russian missile corvette utilizing suicide drone boats, including to a rising record of excessive profile casualties for the Black Sea Fleet.

Security consultancy Ambrey counted as many as six sea drones concerned within the assault. According to Ukraine’s GUR, the drones efficiently and repeatedly focused the missile corvette Ivanovets because it was working on Lake Donuzlav, a former enclosed freshwater physique that has a slim opening to the Black Sea. 

A video launched by the GUR reveals a number of drones approaching below defensive hearth from the corvette; some focused the strict, and no less than two appeared to have struck the vessel amidships.

The GUR additionally recorded an enormous blast aboard the ship, presumably a secondary explosion from an onboard journal or a stowed missile. Ivanovets was fitted to hold as much as 4 Moskit supersonic antiship missiles, every with a 600-pound warhead. 

After a number of direct hits, the vessel “suffered damage incompatible with further movement” after which sank, the GUR stated. The ultimate frames of the launched video present the warship sinking by the strict, its bow almost vertical. 

Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman Olexander Scherba advised the BBC that the ship’s crew deserted ship. 

Ivanovets was a Project 1241 Molniya corvette constructed through the Soviet period, and considered one of greater than a dozen nonetheless remaining in Russian Navy service. At 500 tonnes displacement she was a small vessel, however her highly effective antiship missile loadout made her a priceless goal. 

Ivanovets launching a Moskit antiship missile in a sinking train, 2023 (Russian MOD)

The GUR thanked Ukraine’s United24 public donation platform and the Ministry of Digital Transformation for enabling the assault. 

Though challenged by tools shortages on the battlefield ashore, Ukraine has had appreciable success attacking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, each in port and below manner. Among many different strikes, in September it destroyed a Kilo-class submarine and a tank touchdown ship in Sevastopol, then hit the fleet headquarters building with a cruise missile. In October it hit a patrol ship off the coast of Sevastopol; in November it destroyed two small touchdown ships and a model new corvette; and in December it destroyed one other touchdown ship, setting off massive secondary explosions. In its highest-profile assault, in 2022 Ukraine sank the fleet’s flagship, the cruiser Moskva.