| Advertisement |
March 5 (UPI) -- Ukraine military intelligence said Tuesday its forces had sunk a Russian patrol ship in the Black Sea in a drone attack. An unspecified number of naval personnel were killed and injured aboard the 1,700-ton Sergei Kotov after it sustained damage to the stern and its port and starboard sides, Ukrainian intelligence official Andrii Yusov told Ukrainian broadcaster RFERL.
Advertisement
The attack followed reports of blasts overnight in Russian-annexed Crimea, forcing the closure of the Kerch Bridge connecting the peninsula with the mainland after Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its forces intercepted and destroyed 38 drones over Crimea.
The Sergei Kotov took part in an offensive on Snake Island south of Odessa, on day one of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to Ukraine, along with the Moskva, a cruiser that was sunk in April 2022.
The patrol boat survived two previous sea drone attacks in late July while deployed in the Black Sea off Crimea with sister vessel Vasily Bykov.
"All three unmanned enemy boats were destroyed by fire from the ships' standard weapons," the Russian Defense ministry said at the time of the second attack.
Tuesday's offensive follows numerous recent attacks on Russian naval vessels, including the landing ship Caesar Kunikov in waters off the coast of occupied Crimea on Feb. 14, which Ukraine claimed to have sunk.
In late December, Ukrainian forces sank the Novocherkassk, another Russian landing ship, off the coast of Crimea.
