Ukrainian naval drones can sink the entire Russian Black Sea fleet – The Times
The commander of a naval drone unit with the call sign “13” claims that the entire Black Sea fleet could follow the fate of the Moskva missile cruiser.
He spoke about this in an interview with The Times journalists who visited the secret military base.
According to the sea dock operator, he fulfilled his life’s goal when he managed to sink Russian ships in the waters off Chornomorske (Crimea) on November 10. He is currently at a secret base on the Dnipro River, where Magura V5 drones are located, and claims that the Ukrainian Defense Forces have enough explosives to sink the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet with their help.
According to the Ukrainian military, the Russians on Shark and Serna-class amphibious assault ships failed to stop the naval drones, even though they saw them approaching.
“The goal of my life was to sink a Russian ship, and we sank two at once,” he explained, adding that no one had ever managed to do so before.
One of Ukraine’s main successes in confronting Russia was that it managed to push the Russian fleet away from the Ukrainian coast and open up corridors for international supplies and economic development. This was stated by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron during his recent visit to Odesa.
“If you look at the bigger picture, the Ukrainians have recently pushed back the Russian fleet in the Black Sea and opened up the sea route for exports, their economy is growing. And, of course, they are knocking on the doors of both NATO and the EU and getting a very warm response,” Lord Cameron said, adding that these are huge achievements.
According to him, the task of the West today is to build on these achievements and determine what other concrete steps can be taken to help Ukraine in its fight against aggression.
But 13th has another dream.
“My dream is to sink even more Russian ships, much bigger ones,” he explained, “so many that they don’t sail at all. Do we have the ability to destroy the entire Black Sea Fleet? Yes, we do. And we are working on it.”
In early November, Ukraine destroyed one of Russia’s newly built warships, the Askold corvette, which was considered one of the most modern.
Moscow acknowledged the loss of the ship during the attack by 15 cruise missiles, but without specifying. It was reported that the air defense systems shot down 13 cruise missiles and that a ship that was at the plant was damaged by a cruise missile.
The published footage shows that the strike was on a shipyard in Kerch, not far from the Crimean bridge. According to some reports, the ship was hit by three missiles of the French version of Storm Shadow. According to Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat, the future carrier of “caliber” Askold has not even been launched, let alone conducted military operations. It was undergoing its final tests. Kerch is also building the Amur and Cyclone ships, which, like the Askold, were supposed to be put on combat duty this year.
