Kyiv: Ukraine has disabled five Russian large landing ships since the beginning of war
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Defense Forces have disabled five of the six large landing ships of the Russian fleet, said the speaker of the Ukrainian Naval Forces Dmitry Pletenchuk.
According to him, the Saratov large landing ship was the first to be sunk in the port of temporarily occupied Berdyansk. It was hit by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on March 24, 2022. In the same period, the landing ships Caesar Kunikov and Novocherkassk were damaged.
The fourth target was the Olenegorsky Gornyak large landing ship, which was hit by a marine drone in the port of Novorossiysk on August 4. The ship is currently under repair. Pletenchuk has not yet named the fifth goal.
The speaker of the Navy added that the total wear and tear of the Russian Black Sea fleet is approximately 60-70%, and state orders to produce new ships are fulfilled only by 35% and with a delay of 10 years. Therefore, today the Russian fleet in the Black Sea is only "a pale shadow of the Soviet fleet, which Russia actually inherited."
After a series of Russian attacks on port infrastructure in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit two important ships of the Russian navy - the oil tanker SIG, which transported fuel to Syria, and the landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak. British intelligence stated that the damage to the latter was a significant blow to the Black Sea Fleet. This ship, weighing 3,600 tons and 113 meters long, is the largest Russian naval vessel that was seriously damaged after the sinking of the cruiser Moskva on April 13, 2022.