Ukrainian military intelligence operatives “disabled” a Russian minesweeping vessel belonging to the Kremlin’s Baltic Fleet, Kyiv’s GUR agency said on Monday, in the latest attack on Moscow’s navy that are typically concentrated on the depleted Black Sea Fleet.
The Aleksandr Obukhov minesweeper, based in the Kaliningrad city of Baltiysk,” suffered severe damage,” the GUR agency said in a post to messaging app Telegram.
The vessel’s engine sustained water damage after the “mysterious appearance of a hole in the gas pipe,” the agency said in a coy statement.
The Russian vessel is “undergoing major repairs” and was scheduled to go on combat duty, the GUR said. “Repair of a key installation on a ship is technically difficult and expensive.”
Newsweek has reached out the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Russian minesweeper the “Aleksandr Obukhov” on the Neva River in St. Petersburg. The vessel, based in the Kaliningrad city of Baltiysk, has “suffered severe damage,” Ukraine’s GUR agency said.
Alexander Galperin / Sputnik via AP
Ukraine, despite having no major warships in its navy, has wielded long-range strikes, airborne drones and waterborne uncrewed surface vessels effectively against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, operating close to Ukraine’s coastline.
Kyiv said it has succeeded in taking out a Russian Kilo-class submarine based in Crimea and several landing ships and other vessels, like the missile-armed Tsiklon warship in May.
Russia is thought to have moved many of its vital assets from the main base in the southern Crimean city of Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, further away from Kyiv’s reach. Moscow is also thought to be establishing another base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Georgia, which is even further from Ukraine.
Russia has attempted to shield its bases from attacks by using barges, decoys and false silhouettes to trick or trip up Ukrainian drone operators, British intelligence has previously evaluated.
But the Kremlin’s navy deployed and based elsewhere has been largely unaffected. Its submarine fleet in particular is a formidable force. Russia’s Baltic Fleet is based in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, looking out onto the Baltic Sea and sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
The Baltic Sea, largely surrounded by NATO members now that Finland and Sweden have joined the trans-Atlantic alliance, is sometimes dubbed a “NATO lake.”
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted a reevaluation of alliances and security for many countries, including those on NATO’s eastern flank and along the Baltic Sea.
Kyiv’s GUR agency said earlier this year that it had targeted Moscow’s Serpukhov small missile ship, based in Baltiysk, during a joint operation with Russian anti-Kremlin operatives.
