Missiles destroy Russian Black Sea Fleet minesweeper, says Ukraine military

The Telegraph:  A Ukrainian missile attack has destroyed a Russian minesweeper in occupied Crimea, Ukraine’s military has said.

The Ukrainian Navy did not give details on how the Kovrovets was destroyed, although the Russian ministry of defence said US Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) missiles had been fired at Crimea.

“Another bad day for the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” the Ukrainian defence ministry said on X alongside a photo of the Kovrovets inside a targeting sight.

The US quietly gave Ukraine ATACMS missiles, a mobile surface-to-surface missile system with a range of up to 190 miles, in April after months of lobbying by Kyiv. Ukraine first fired ATACMS missiles at Russian forces three weeks ago and has since struck logistics bases, troop centres and airfields in occupied Donbas and Crimea.

Russia’s defence ministry denied that its minesweeper had been destroyed in the attack and said that its air-defence systems had shot down all of Ukraine’s missiles.

“By air-defence duty systems, nine ATACMS operational-tactical missiles and one drone were destroyed over the territory of the Republic of Crimea,” it said.

The alleged destruction of the minesweeper piles more pressure on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, whose poor performance since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022 has infuriated Vladimir Putin.

Black Sea failures

It failed to hold the strategically important Snake Island, its flagship has been sunk and several warships and submarines have been destroyed at harbour in occupied Crimea. Earlier this year, Putin sacked the commander of the Black Sea Fleet and ordered its officers to improve training for defending against missile and drone attacks.

Russian military bloggers said that Ukrainian attacks this week were the most intense for some time and may be linked to the arrival of ammunition resupplies from the US.

“The enemy’s targets are military airfields, refineries and port infrastructure. The enemy inflicts, first of all, economic damage, which exceeds the costs of normal air-defence organisation,” said the Two Majors Telegram channel.

Reports said that Ukrainian missiles had blown up a radar station and airfield in Crimea this week and drones had attacked the Novorossiysk harbour, where part of the Black Sea Fleet is based.

Video from Novorossiysk showed Russian marines firing air-defence cannons wildly at drones, celebrating when they hit one although they also appeared to spray harbour buildings.

Targets have also included oil refineries in Russia and the BBC quoted an unnamed source as saying that a Russian military airfield had been attacked in the Krasnodar region of Russia too.

“At this airfield, there were dozens of different aircraft that attacked Ukrainian positions,” the BBC quoted the source as saying. It didn’t report on the success of the mission.