[Updated 12/26] Another Russian Navy touchdown ship has been attacked and destroyed by Ukrainian forces, including to a rising tally of Black Sea Fleet ships which have been taken out of fee. 

In a quick message Tuesday morning, the Armed Forces of Ukraine mentioned that the Ropucha-class touchdown ship Novocherkassk was destroyed in Feodosia, Crimea in a single day. The AFU credited the assault to Ukrainian Air Force pilots. 

“Crimea is Ukraine. There is no place for the occupier’s fleet here,” the AFU wrote. 

The Russian protection ministry confirmed the strike in a press release to state media, and officers claimed that the 2 Ukrainian plane that launched the assault had been shot down. The ministry asserted that the ship was “damaged,” however bystander movies and early satellite tv for pc imagery seem to counsel a constructive complete loss (and doable sinking). 

The Russian-appointed governor of occupied Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, confirmed that there had been “explosions from detonations of ordnance” saved within the port space. Multiple bystanders captured the occasion on video (beneath), and seem to depict an enormous secondary explosion centered on the burning ship. 

Hot’ does not even start to explain it! The second of detonation of the Russian warship Novocherkassk pic.twitter.com/GCDqcy72PT

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) December 26, 2023

Russian navy has a staggering attrition price pic.twitter.com/WGmrYmWLjG

— Giorgi Revishvili (@revishvilig) December 26, 2023

NEW:

Ukraine carried out an enormous assault on the port of Feodosia in occupied Crimea, destroying a serious Russian Navy vessel, the touchdown Novocherkask ship. #SlavaUkraini ????????????pic.twitter.com/nbyaEYBUDZ

— Republicans towards Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 26, 2023

At 03:47 am Kyiv time on December 26 Lt-Gen Mykola Oleshchuk, Ukraine’s Air Force commander shared footage from Feodosia and reported that Ukrainian pilots destroyed the Russian Navy’s “Novocherkassk” massive touchdown ship:
“And Russia’s fleet is getting smaller and smaller! pic.twitter.com/uL73EqIfhm

— ukraine_defence (@ukrdefence) December 26, 2023

The first accessible satellite tv for pc imagery of the scene seems to point out a partially-sunken vessel on the location of the assault. Based on geolocation utilizing historical imagery, the half-sunken wreckage proven inside the pink rectangle within the satellite tv for pc photograph corresponds to the placement of the burning vessel (see video beneath). 

The first low-resolution @planet satellite tv for pc photos of the Feodosia port, captured on December 26 at 11:25 native time, present that another vessel (yellow sq.) is certainly partially sunk following the Ukrainian strike on the ‘Novocherkassk’ touchdown ship. pic.twitter.com/DY51NpJEMv

— Mark Krutov (@kromark) December 26, 2023

Planet / Mark Krutov / X

Past satellite photos from October 2 supplied by MT Anderson and Planet Labs seem to point out a Ropucha-class touchdown ship berthed in the identical location. 

It is the newest in an extended string of Ukrainian strikes on the Russian Navy, and the collected toll is having a strategic impact. Russian warships have pulled again from the port of Sevastopol, Crimea, retreating to the security of Novorossyisk additional east. The assault in Feodosia – a small port city midway between the 2 bigger seaports – confirms that Ukraine can attain deeper into Russian-held territory. 

Ukrainian forces additionally destroyed a Russian touchdown ship at Sevastopol in September 2023 and one other at Berdyansk in March 2022. (According to Mash.ru, the Novocherkassk was hit within the Berdyansk strike as properly, however survived till her sinking Monday evening.)

Other well-known assaults embody the sinking of the Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva in April 2022, the destruction of a Kilo-class sub in Sevastopol in September 2023 and a strike on a model new missile boat at a yard in Kerch final month. In all, Ukraine says that its forces have taken 23 Russian vessels (of all types) out of motion.