The Russians have relocated three large landing ships from the Black to the Azov Sea, spokesman of the Ukrainian Naval Forces, Dmytro Pletenchuk, said on Ukrainian television.
This follows a series of successful Ukrainian attacks on the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.
On the night of 13 September, the Russians lost the Minsk landing ship and the Rostov submarine in occupied Sevastopol to a successful Ukrainian missile attack. And on 14 September, Ukrainian naval drones damaged at least one of two patrop ships that they attacked in the southwestern part of the Black Sea, as well as the Samum missile carrier near Sevastopol.
Now, Moscow wants to protect the rest of its fleet.
“The processes related to the liberation of our territory will continue. It is noteworthy that today, for some reason, the Russian occupiers relocated three large landing ships from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov,” emphasized Pletenchuk.
The official also noted that the Minsk landing ship cannot be restored because it is old and severely damaged. Pletenchuk also mentioned that this ship participated in the so-called “Syrian Express” and provided logistics for Russian military operations in Syria.
On the night of 13 September, the Russian-installed occupation authorities of Sevastopol reported a fire at a shipyard in a naval base following a massive missile attack by Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
Commander of Ukraine’s Air Force Mykola Oleshchuk hinted that British Storm Shadow and French Scalp missiles were used in the attack.
The UK Intelligence reported that despite Russia downplaying the damage, the Minsk landing ship has almost certainly been functionally destroyed, while the Rostov, one of Russia’s four submarines capable of carrying cruise missiles, has likely suffered catastrophic damage.
The open-source group Oryx reported that Minsk was likely entirely destroyed, not merely damaged.
