At dawn on August 4, the Russian naval base in Novorossiysk was attacked by surface drones. The Ministry of Defense of Russia stated that there were two boats, and they were allegedly destroyed by fire from the ships.
The mayor of Novorossiysk, Andriy Kravchenko, reported that the attack was repelled by the crews of the large amphibious assault ship "Olenegorsky Gornyak" and the patrol ship "Suvorovets".
Russian Telegram channels shared photos and videos of the destruction of the drones, but later videos of the sunken ship appeared.
Several Russian Telegram channels reported damage to the amphibious assault ship — presumably the Olenegorsky Gornyak, which was repelling the attack. In the video, it is being towed with one compartment flooded. There are currently no official confirmations of its beating.
The video of the moment of the drone attack on the amphibious ship is already being shared on social networks. Ukrainian media, citing sources, report that the special operation was carried out by the SBU.
- On August 1, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported an "unsuccessful" attack by three naval drones on patrol ships of the Black Sea Fleet 340 km from Sevastopol, which the Russians allegedly repelled. However, Babelʼs source in the security and defense sector informed that the Russian sailors of one of these ships asked for the evacuation of the victims, which contradicts the claims of the "successful repulsion" of the drone attack. The intercepted conversation is here. At the time of the conversation, there was at least one dead and five wounded.
- This is not the first time that the Ministry of Defense of Russia has reported on the successful repulsion of a drone attack on warships, and then there are confirmations of the opposite.
- On May 24 of this year, two drones attacked the warship "Ivan Hurs". The video of the attack appeared the next day. The footage shows that the attack involved naval drones from the so-called drone fleet, which was raised through UNITED24. Such drones have already carried out attacks on Russian ships of the Black Sea Fleet.