KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine’s military claimed Wednesday it used high-tech naval drones to sink a Russian landing ship in the Black Sea, a report that has not been confirmed by Russian authorities.
The Caesar Kunikov amphibious ship sank 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) off Alupka, a city on the southern edge of the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014, Ukraine’s General Staff claimed. It said the ship can carry 87 crew members. The ship was also transporting ammunition, a Ukrainian official claimed.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the claim during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. He said questions should be addressed to the Russian military.
Several Russian military bloggers confirmed the attack on the ship but stopped short of confirming that it had been sunk.
Ukraine has moved onto the defensive in the war, but has kept up its strikes behind the largely static 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line.
It is the second time in two weeks that Ukrainian forces have claimed they sank a Russian vessel in the Black Sea. Last week, they published a video that they claimed showed naval drones assaulting the Russian missile-armed corvette Ivanovets.
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence, known by its Ukrainian acronym GUR, claimed its special operations unit “Group 13” sank the Caesar Kunikov using advanced Magura V5 sea drones on Wednesday. Explosions damaged the vessel on its left side, it claimed, though a heavily edited video it released was unclear. The same unit also struck on Feb. 1, according to officials.
GUR’s Andrii Yusov declined to say how many drones were deployed. But he told reporters that the operation took “a long time to prepare—routes are tracked, data is collected.”
The landing ship can carry tanks, troops, and other cargo to support amphibious assaults, with doors in the bow that open onto land without the ship needing to dock.
The Magura V5 drone, which looks like a sleek black speedboat, was unveiled last year. It reportedly has a top speed of 42 knots (80 kph, 50 mph) and a payload of 320 kilograms (700 pounds).
The Russian military did not immediately comment on the claimed sinking, saying only that it downed six Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea overnight.
Caesar Kunikov, for whom the Russian vessel was named, was a World War II hero of the Soviet Union for his exploits and died on Feb. 14, the same day as the Ukrainian drone strike, in 1943.
In other developments, an overnight Russian attack on the town of Selydove in the eastern Donetsk region struck buildings, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on social media.
Selydove is just 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the front line.
Nine Ukrainians were killed and at least 25 people wounded by Russian shelling over the previous 24 hours, the president’s office said Wednesday.
