Ukrainian naval drones may or may not have damaged Russian intelligence ship. But it looks like they probably have.
Citing a Ukrainian military source, the news website Ukrainska Pravda reports that the intelligence ship Ivan Khurs, part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, has been damaged in a Ukrainian naval drone attack.
According to the speaker, the ship didn’t sink but urgently needed repairs. “The Russians are now hastily fixing it,” he told the publication.
On Thursday, a 14-second video of a drone attack on a Russian ship was published on an unofficial Ukrainian military Telegram channel. The footage showed a naval drone approaching the vessel under oncoming fire.
Ukrainska Pravda’s source confirms the authenticity of the footage. Meduza believes the Yury Ivanov-class intel ship in the video is none other than Ivan Khurs. Two independent open-source intelligence researchers have arrived at the same conclusion.
Russia’s Defense Ministry looks at things differently. According to the Russian side, on May 24, three Ukrainian naval drones “attempted an unsuccessful attack” on Ivan Khurs while the vessel conducted a security mission by the trans-Black Sea gas pipelines TurkStream and Blue Stream.
The Russian authorities claim that all the drones “were destroyed by fire” from the ship’s weapons, and that afterwards the vessel resumed its mission.