Ukraine says Crimea attack destroyed two Russian military boats

Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence service said Thursday that its forces had used naval drones to destroy two Russian patrol boats off Moscow-annexed Crimea.

The GUR agency wrote on Telegram that its Group 13 special forces unit using Ukrainian naval drones “successfully attacked the boats of the aggressor state of Russia in temporarily occupied Crimea.”

It said that Russia used fighter planes and helicopters to try to destroy the drones in the Vuzka bay in northwest Crimea, as well as firing on them using small arms and 30 mm cannons.

It posted video footage of a helicopter firing into the water and bright flashes of fire apparently coming from the coast, saying this did not prevent the Ukrainians from “successfully completing their combat mission.”

“As a result of the strike, two Russian boats were destroyed,” GUR said, adding that according to preliminary data, they were high-speed amphibious vessels of the KS-701 Tunets type.

The GUR video shows footage from a drone showing it honing in on two moored boats, as well as nighttime footage of a massive explosion sending a plume of smoke up into the air.

The KS-701 small motor boats, made in Russia, are used for coastal patrols.

Russia said earlier it had destroyed two Ukrainian naval drones “heading for Crimea” and intercepted 13 aerial drones in the southern Krasnodar region and over the Black Sea near Crimea.

Russia also said it shot down eight tactical ATACMS missiles over the Sea of Azov, near Crimea.

Russia’s defense ministry later said the Black Sea fleet had destroyed four Ukrainian naval drones, without giving details.

Faced with more than two years of Russian bombardments, Ukraine has taken the fight to Russian soil, often targeting energy infrastructure across the border.

Separately, Russia’s FSB security service said that it had foiled a series of sabotage attacks planned by Ukrainian special services on railway lines in Crimea.

The FSB said it detained four local residents recruited by Ukraine, while their leader, a Russian citizen, was killed during capture by an exploding IUD, Russian news agencies reported.

Russian television said the agents had planned to paralyze the movement of trains, so that Ukrainians could attack them with rockets. Video footage showed confiscated cartridges, an old machine gun, a pistol and a Kalashnikov.