Ukraine has claimed it used sea drones to sink a Russian ship in the Black Sea, as Kremlin investigators alleged that a Russian military transport plane that crashed last month was brought down by two US-made Patriot missiles fired by Kyiv’s forces.
Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency published a video it said showed naval drones assaulting the Russian missile-armed cutter Ivanovets on Wednesday night.
The footage released on GUR’s social media purports to show multiple naval drones crashing into a vessel and exploding. The GUR footage showed the ship was sinking.
According to GUR, the ship, costing between £47 million and £55 million, was on patrol on Lake Donuzlav in western Crimea when a GUR special unit struck it.
The lake has been more of a bay since 1961 when a channel connecting it to the Black Sea was dug out.
It was not possible to independently verify either side’s claims.
Private security firm Ambrey said Ukraine used up to six sea drones, each of which usually carry 660lb of explosives.
A western official backed the Ukrainian account, saying it was “highly likely that uncrewed surface vessels were responsible for the strike on the Ivanovets”.
Ukrainian attacks on Russian aircraft and ships in the Black Sea have helped push Moscow’s naval forces back, allowing Kyiv to increase crucial exports of grain and other goods through its southern ports.
Ambrey noted that any unexploded drones could be a threat for Black Sea shipping.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Investigative Committee, the main state criminal investigation agency, said on Thursday that had it deduced that the Russian Il-76 military transport plane that crashed near the border with Ukraine on January 24 was downed using the US-made Patriot air defence system which western allies have supplied to Kyiv.
Russian officials claimed there were 74 people on board: 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew members and three Russian servicemen. All were reported killed.
The two missiles were fired by the Ukrainian military from near the village of Lyptsi in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, it said.
The committee said 116 fragments from two MIM-104A missiles fired from a Patriot system were found near the crash site in the Belgorod region. It produced no physical evidence for its claims.
Meanwhile, fighting continued to claim civilian casualties along the front line stretching across eastern and southern Ukraine.
In the eastern Donetsk region, the Russian army shelled 11 towns and villages, killing one person in the village of Tsukuryne on Thursday. In Toretsk, two people were wounded during a rocket attack, the Ukrainian presidential office said.
In the south, six civilians were wounded in the Kherson region, including a husband and wife in Beryslav who were hit by a drone attack while riding a motorcycle through the city.