The Ukrainian military announced on Sunday that it had directly hit and damaged a Russian Navy rescue ship, the oldest still in service worldwide, in Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula, home of the Black Sea Fleet.
According to Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy, the Kommuna ship was hit while docked in Sevastopol Bay yesterday morning and “it is clear that it is no longer capable of carrying out missions.”
The Ukrainian armed forces reported via Telegram that it is one of the oldest ships of the Russian Navy, launched in 1913.
According to reports, the catamaran was involved in a mission to recover bodies and sensitive material when the Ukrainian military sank the Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, in April 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly touted his military’s successes in attacks against the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which is based in Crimea, a peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.
According to the representative of the Ukrainian Navy Pletensuk, in Ukrainian operations about a third of this fleet has been destroyed or put out of service since the outbreak of the war.
The governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvazaev, said for his part yesterday that the Russian armed forces repelled a missile attack targeting a docked ship, adding that debris caused a small fire, which he assured was immediately extinguished.
