THIS is the moment Russian battleships were blown to pieces in a massive missile strike by Ukraine on the annexed port city of Sevastopol.
Putin’s prized £80million spy warship Ivan Khurs was also hit by two missiles in a major blow to the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
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The 312ft long Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship was seriously damaged after it was “hit by two missiles at once”.
Ukraine unleashed hell on Putin’s battleships by launching 18 missiles – the biggest onslaught of the war on the c ity.
Eleven were shot down by Russian air defences, but seven hit targets which reportedly included the fleet’s main communications centre.
Two large landing ships were previously hit in the attack – the Yamal and the Azov, each worth £170 million.
The Ukraine armed forces strategic communications said on Sunday that the two ships had been hit without mentioning the Ivan Khurs, a longtime target.
The scale of damage to the £80 million Ivan Khurs – which has a normal crew of 131 – is not clear.
The Yamal suffered “critical” damage, reported the GUR, Ukrainian military intelligence.
“The occupiers are continuously pumping water from the damaged ship, which took part in the annexation of Crimea and was under repair from 2017 to 2023,” it said.
The Ivan Khurs is a Yuriy Ivanov class (Project 18280) signals intelligence vessel which came into service in 2017.
Ukraine has twice come close to sinking it with kamikaze sea drone attacks last year, and reports said it had been damaged.
If confirmed, the losses will be a devastating blow to Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin.
The Yamal has a normal crew of 98, and the Azov 87.
The strike comes days after Admiral Alexander Moiseev, 61, was made commander-in-chief of the Russian navy after the dictator abruptly fired previous incumbent Admiral Nikolay Yevmenov, who had held the post for five years, over a previous battleship sinking by Ukraine.
Earlier this month the £51 million Sergey Kotov patrol vessel, one of Putin’s newest naval ships, was blown to pieces by a flock of unmanned MAGURA V5 attack drones.
Last month the £170 million Caesar Kunikov large landing ship was also destroyed.
Russia has lost more than a quarter of its fleet – some 21 vessels – in the war, including the early sinking in 2022 of flagship Moskva, in a Neptune missile strike by Ukraine.
The Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol was also blitzed in a missile strike last year.
Putin also fired Admiral Viktor Sokolov, 61, commander-in-chief of the Black Sea Fleet last month, in the wake of the loss of the Caesar Kunikov warship.
If the latest three vessels are confirmed to be out of commission, Putin will have lost 18 warships since the beginning of the 25-month war with Ukraine, and seven since the end of December last year.
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Credit Gist New Today News in Newspaper Nigeria Headlines
