PUTIN’S once feared and prized Black Sea Fleet has been left humiliated as Ukrainian forces have got “creative” – blitzing his vessels with a devastating one-two punch.
By combining powerful missiles with kamikaze sea drones, Zelensky’s army has impressively chipped away at Vlad’s beloved warships.
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Today impressive footage showed the moment a special squad of Ukrainian officers blasted the 369ft Caesar Kunikov off the coast of Crimea.
Huge plumes of smoke rose around the landing ship in one clip as another showed it tilted on its side.
Ukraine’s military revealed it had used sea drones called “Magura V5” in the ambush – leaving the boat full of holes before it sank.
And the Caesar Kunikov’s watery demise is just the latest blow to have embarrassed Putin.
It has become at least the 11th warship to be destroyed by Ukraine.
Security experts have said Ukraine’s smart and aggressive approach has effectively eroded the Russia fleet – much as they have done across the frontline.
In response to sustained Ukrainian attacks, Russia has moved some of its warship fleet to Novorossiysk, in the south, away from ports like Odesa in Ukraine and Sevastopol in Crimea.
Ukraine has used a combination of conventional missile strikes mixed with more ambitious raids with sea drones.
Essentially, glorified remote-control boats packed with bombs – they have become the bane of the Russian fleet.
And Ukrainian troops delight in nothing more than releasing incredible on-board camera footage showing Putin’s ships sinking beneath the waves.
Russian sailors will be constantly looking over the railings of their ships with dread looking for the stealthy little boats which can sneak up near silently on their ships.
Multi-million-pound vessels weighing up to 10,000 tonnes and which ruled the seas for decades are now being undone by the comparatively cheap and simple Ukrainian drones.
This has blunted Russia’s ability to strike targets in Ukraine and also left key ports, including Sevastopol, open to hits like the one Kyiv’s forces executed there in September on Vlad’s warship HQ.
Ukraine’s ‘great success’ in attacking Black Sea fleet
Dr Bastian Giegerich, security analyst for British military think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said on Monday that Ukraine has had “great success” in striking Russian naval targets.
Giegerich said: “Kyiv continues to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with great effect.”
Through the use of sea drones and missiles, including the Storm Shadow rockets supplied by the West, Ukraine has “eroded the fleet’s operational effectiveness through creative strategy and tactics”.
Defence experts at IISS have dubbed the Black Sea hits as “big setbacks” for Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine.
Kyiv continues to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with great effect
Dr Bastian Giegerich, IISS security analyst
And Vlad’s Black Sea fleet was “put on the defensive by several events”, which included the sea drone attack in December that “badly damaged a landing ship off Novorossiysk”.
They also said Ukrainian attacks in September which took out one of Vlad’s valuable ships and damaged a key submarine were big wins for Zelensky’s forces.
A few weeks ago Ukraine claimed to have sunk Russian warship Ivanovets using almost 10 kamikaze sea drones.
Footage from Ukraine’s defence ministry showed their boats speeding towards the £55million missile ship and bombarding it until it sank.
And Kyiv’s intelligence services said the 184ft boat rolled over after sustaining hefty damage from the drones before sinking to the bottom of the sea.
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Sea drones & anti-ship missiles
The February 1 attack came after Ukraine unveiled its new underwater robot drone, a stealth Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV).
The Project First Ukrainian Robotic Navy (FURY) is a drone which can carry mines, torpedoes, and submarine-launched missiles used to obliterate Vlad’s ships.
And it could even be used to gather intelligence on Russian operations.
It follows their range of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) which have been hugely successful in Black Sea attacks.
One formidable clip shows their invisible kamikaze “Sea Baby” drone spitting fire at enemy boats, the same weapon responsible for the attack on Putin’s much-beloved £3 million Crimean Bridge.
The “Sea Baby” is made of a material cleverly undetectable to radar systems and can carry up to 850kg of explosives.
And the Ukrainian army relies on its Marichka underwater kamikaze drone – capable of carrying 1,000lbs of explosives – to lead the Black Sea battle.
The Neptune “super missile”, revealed in August last year, was reportedly snatched from behind enemy lines during a raid on Putin’s prized £200million air defence system.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, said at the time that the weapon is a “new, absolutely modern” piece of tech.
He also praised it’s “flawless performance” in destroying Russian targets.
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Boxing Day ambush & flagship attack
Putin has long tried to downplay the true losses his army has faced in the Black Sea.
One of the biggest blows to his reserves came on December 26 when his warship Novocherkassk was blitzed in a Ukrainian Storm Shadow missile strike.
UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said at the time: “This latest destruction of Putin’s navy demonstrates that those who believe there’s a stalemate in the Ukraine war are wrong!
“They haven’t noticed that over the past 4 months 20% of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been destroyed.
“Russia’s dominance in the Black Sea is now challenged.”
The Boxing Day blast saw Vlad’s valuable landing ship – docked in Crimea – turned into a raging fireball.
Dramatic pictures the next day show the charred and hollowed out relic of a once impressive and key Russian vessel.
In September last year, Putin’s Black Sea fleet HQ itself was attacked by another Storm Shadow missile fired by Ukraine.
But perhaps most impressively, Ukrainian forces managed to blow up Russia’s flagship vessel – the Moskva – in April 2022.
The once-impressive missile cruiser was in service on-and-off for almost 40 years – but sank to the bottom of the Black Sea just weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Ukraine used their impressive low-flying, subsonic anti-ship Neptune missile to sink the 12,490 ton Moskva flagship.
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