Russian landing ship sunk off Crimea in double drone strike

UKRAINE’S military said it had destroyed another Russian warship off the coast of Crimea yesterday, dealing a significant blow to Moscow’s Black Sea fleet.

Kyiv’s HUR military intelligence agency announced that it had sunk the Caesar Kunikov amphibious landing vessel in a night-time raid.

It wrote on the Telegram messaging app that “critical holes” had been punctured in the side of the ship with Magura V5 kamikaze sea drones.

Grainy footage of the strike shared by HUR appeared to show one of the unmanned vehicles hurtling towards the Russian ship as it illuminated the darkened skies, before a huge plume of smoke became visible.

Unverified video clips taken from the shoreline appeared to show a violent explosion as at least one of the Ukrainian drones struck the vessel.

After a second drone strike, the ship rolled onto its side and began to sink.

Images shot as day broke over Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, appeared to show the landing vessel almost entirely submerged under the waves of the Black Sea.

Ukrainian forces have repeatedly struck Russia’s coveted naval assets in the area since the beginning of the fullscale invasion almost two years ago.

The nation’s military claimed yesterday it had disabled a third of the Black Sea fleet, 24 ships and one submarine, after the most recent strike.

Yesterday’s attack was carried out by the “Group 13” military intelligence unit, which also sank the Russian Ivanovets missile cruiser earlier this month.

The group likely launched their maritime kamikaze attack drones from at least 217 miles away near the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa, with the Russian ship having been destroyed off the Crimean coastal town of Alupka in Ukrainian territorial waters.

Kyiv’s Western backers have lauded its strikes on the Russian Black Sea fleet as one of the war-torn country’s major military successes.