Success of the Ukrainian navy. They damaged Russian ship
5:23 AM EDT, October 13, 2023
The Ukrainian side confirms that they managed to damage the Russian patrol ship Pavel Derzhavin. It belongs to the Russian Black Sea Fleet and was stationed near Sevastopol in Crimea, occupied by Russia.
The success of the Russian navy was announced by a spokesperson in a conversation with Radio Liberty. - I cannot provide any information about the circumstances of this incident, but I confirm that such an event actually occurred. It's a Russian ship, although we also had a unit with the same name before. If I remember correctly, it was so even before the war. However, I can point out that it's not a Ukrainian ship (which is now damaged) - Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk conveyed.
Information about an explosion on the Russian patrol ship Pavel Derzhavin in Sevastopol started circulating on social media earlier. The event took place on the external roadstead of the port, and the exact causes of the explosion, which occurred on Wednesday before noon, are not yet known.
Preliminary assumptions suggest that a Russian unit may have been damaged as a result of contact with a sea mine. Serhij Bratczuk, a representative of the Odessa regional authorities, confirmed this version of events in a conversation with Ukrainian television Channel 24.
Sevastopol is one of the two key bases of the Russian navy
Sevastopol in Crimea and Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar Territory are the locations of two key bases of the Black Sea Fleet. In June of this year, Ukrainian military media reported that enemy units, concerned about their safety, began to move on the basis of "pendulum movement" in the Black Sea, moving between these two main bases.
In September, the Ukrainian side admitted to shelling the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol and the shipyard in the same city.
As a result of these actions, two Russian units - the large landing ship Minsk and the submarine Rostov na Donu - were seriously damaged.
The Russian navy suffered its greatest losses during the conflict with Ukraine in April 2022, when the missile cruiser Moscow was sunk - the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. According to official Kremlin data, only one crew member died on board the cruiser, and 27 were considered missing. However, the actual number of casualties was probably much higher. Independent observers, as well as the Lithuanian defense department, estimate that over 400 Russian soldiers may have died.
