The Ghosts (Prymary) unit of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine struck two large landing ships during the night of April 19.
According to the agency, the attack took place in Sevastopol Bay.
The targets of the drone strike were the Project 775 landing ship Yamal and the Project 1171 landing ship Nikolay Filchenkov.
The large landing ship Yamal was built in 1988. It is 112.5 meters long and can carry up to 500 tons of cargo, including troops and heavy armored vehicles.
It is worth noting that the ship may have been damaged during a Ukrainian attack in September 2024. According to the OSINT community CyberBoroshno, the Yamal was heading to a dry dock for repairs.
Previously, the Ukrainian Defense Forces had already destroyed three Project 775 large landing ships and damaged two more. It is also worth recalling that a strike on a dry dock took place on the night of September 13, 2023, as a result of which the large landing ship Minsk was damaged.
Later, on the night of December 26, 2023, aviation of the Ukrainian Air Force struck the Russian large landing ship Novocherkassk with cruise missiles. After the hit, a fire broke out on board, followed by a powerful detonation, which led to its complete destruction.
On the night of February 14, 2024, MAGURA naval drones attacked the Russian large landing ship Caesar Kunikov in the Black Sea. It sustained critical hull breaches on the port side and sank.
In addition, a photo has appeared online showing damage to the Russian large landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak after it was struck by a naval kamikaze drone on August 4, 2023. Also, in March 2024, the large landing ship Azov was likely damaged.
The second Project 1171 large landing ship struck on April 19, Nikolay Filchenkov, has been in service since 1975. It has a cargo capacity of up to 1,000 tons, allowing it to transport dozens of armored vehicles.
Ukrainian forces had already destroyed one Project 1171 ship, the Saratov, in 2022 in the port of Berdiansk.
Currently, the Black Sea grouping of the Russian Navy reportedly includes one Project 1171 large landing ship Orsk and, likely, three ships transferred before the start of the invasion: the Project 775 landing ships Korolev and Kaliningrad from the Baltic Fleet, and Georgiy Pobedonosets from the Northern Fleet. In addition, the Project 11711 large landing ship Pyotr Morgunov from the Northern Fleet was also present in the Black Sea. It is currently unknown whether all of these ships are still in the Black Sea area.
