Transcripts For ESPRESO 20240704

Six more were injured. The representative of gur, andriy yusov, suggested that part of the crew could have evacuated. Gur also claims that the Russian Military was going to place antiaircraft Missile Systems on the sunken ship. The Russian Ministry of defense and other official russian sources do not comment on the attack on the ship, but it is known that the movement of the kerch the bridge was closed for 8 hours last night. A number of ukrainian media, citing vhur sources, reported that at the time of the attack on board the ship. There was also a k29 transport combat helicopter, which was also destroyed, and for more details about the attack and the destroyed ship, see below. Five beks attacked, i dont know how they fought with them there for 40 minutes, because 40 minutes before that there was information that there were five beks in the kotov area, there was a rotorcraft ship with ak17630 weapons. Ak17630. According to the statement the voice in this video belongs to the commander of the 184th brigade of guard ships of the vodnoy district, the patrol ship sergei kotov was allegedly under his command. In the conversation, he describes the details of its destruction. This gur interception was published shortly after the vessel was reported damaged. And in the comments of radio svoboda, the representative of gur andriy yusov reported that kotov was hunted not for the first time. After the previous two attacks, russia managed to repair the ship, but the third attack by naval drones. For the ship irreversible, on combat duty, ships of this type became, if i am not mistaken, in the 18th year, and the enemy had plans for them, in addition to the actual patrol boat or corvettetype ship, there were also plans to place antiaircraft Missile Systems on the very ship , and there have already been such attempts, well, actually, the fewer such ships, the correspondingly smaller antiaircraft missile complexes will be placed on them. And this means more opportunities for the Ukrainian Security and defense forces, also serhiy kotov, notable for that he participated in the attack together with the cruiser moscow on the snake island, well, actually now joined the same cruiser moskva. Serhiy kotov was destroyed in the territorial waters of ukraine the naval forces say. Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk on the air of the telethon confirmed the information that sounded in the interception of gur. About the fact that during the destruction of the ship , a helicopter could also be on board. In a comment to rfe rl , plytenchuk noted that the black sea fleet has four vessels of this project, but two of them have already been decommissioned. Pavel is one of them derzhavin, which received two damages from the navy, recently, well, how recently, you remember, near the crimea, he also ran into two mines that we installed there, and accordingly, even. It is not yet known in which in that condition, but not in combat readiness, thats for sure, that is, in fact, two of these four ships of this project are no longer in service. The news about the destruction of the ship was also reported by russian bloggers, and while the ministry of defense of russia is silent about the events in the black sea, the socalled zeivoenkors complain about heavy losses black sea fleet. At night, our patrol ship serhii kotov was sunk, and bek was hit with its help. I do not comment on this. I want to, because if this continues, only catamarans and rubber bananas for vacationers will remain in the black sea fleet. The value of serhiy kotov is more than 60 million dollars. The ship was launched in 2021, and became part of the black sea fleet already during the fullscale invasion of russia into ukraine. In july 2022. The ships crew is up to 80 people. The task can be performed by different security base points, protection of the water region of the strait, control of civilian vessels. Actually , on march 5, the ship was guarding the kerch strait. Oleg chubuk, the spokesman of the command of the navy of the Ukrainian Armed forces, has already joined our broadcast. 201017 years, good evening, good evening, what can you say about the extent of damage to this russian ship . Judging by the fact that the ship sank, the degree of impression was significant, the goal was achieved, if you look at it this way, then it is already being tracked by some system, we see that in a very similar way. Was a sunken ship, a corvette, a missile boat, ivanovets, but in another part of the black sea on the other side, on the western coast of crimea. And if so, it is interesting that today i thought about the fact that in almost every port of crimea and, as well as on the outer coast, their ships are already dying, and it is very good that in this way the ukrainian. Fleet, we remember the events of the 18th year, november, november 25 in the kerch strait, and in the same kerch strait, the territorial waters of ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed forces hit a russian ship. And whether or not i understood correctly, you have no doubts that he, that the ship went to the bottom irretrievably, it cannot be retrieved, restored, repaired, if it went to the bottom, it is impossible, of course, but well. According to those data, which comes to all of us, he went to the bottom, and i dont have any other data, well, thats public data, at least we rely on ukrainian intelligence at the moment, because the russian side has not commented somehow , there is no separate Additional Information yet, but it is possible will be tomorrow the day after tomorrow, ok look, according to ukrainian intelligence, 52 crew members were probably evacuated, that is, there was time for the. Ship, tell me what it is in more detail, what type of ships it was, what tasks they had, because i read , that on the one hand , caliber missile launchers could potentially be installed on them, but the representative of the Ukrainian Naval forces, pletenchuk , stated that at the same time serhiy kotov was guarding the kerch strait in the waters of ukraine, well , what are the tasks from your point of view he performed in the last time, maybe even on the day of the defeat . It is the same ship, we say that it is a patrol ship, but it can patrol both the kerch strait and the black sea area, there are Sea Communications from the bosford strait, there and there from the blockade, from inspecting ships, because vasyl bykov is the same type of ship, we remember we remember that it was the helicopter from his ship that landed on the turkish cargo ship, we remember that this ship, you understand, is now a corvette ship. A ship of the third rank, if we say according to the classification, but well, the times are changing, ships are changing, and before there were also ships, corvettes of the third rank, but they had different weapons, lets say, they did not have nonmodular weapons of this type , lets say, where something is possible today, lets say, well, not tomorrow, or after some time after the conversion, there may be a caliber there, but the caliber is there, well, fortunately, it probably isnt there yet, and i am. I heard from its specialists, from experts, that it seems that russia will eventually abandon the construction eh other sides of these these ships, eh, because it is strange, and why the question, eh, it is not possible that there is still no caliber there, well, here we see that and again another trend, it cannot defend itself, which ship, if not a patrol, would be able to defend itself with such power from there alone. Its antisabotage, so to speak, well, as they say terrorist over there , sabotage from the side of ukraine, well, its probably not so, but one way or another, they cant, if its a patrol ship, i can still understand that its the tsar kunikov, there the fortyyearold did not do it, or the same ivanovets rocket boat, on this ship, in addition to the 76mm gun, there are machine guns, cord, two largecaliber machine guns, there seems to be a 12. 7 mm, cartridge. Functions, for example, our sakhaidachnik once performed in the indian ocean, but if we had a ship, well, approximately of the same type, there would be no need to send a quiverman there, the quiverman there, as they say, chased away pirates, but he has one of the weapons, which could have been used, is it the same largecaliber machine gun or several, why they could not defend themselves, it is a problem for they are large, and do you have an answer to this question, why . Because they probably dont draw conclusions, because they didnt act on the proper ones, because they probably, what will they do, maybe they will still use Naval Aviation there, maybe those ver. And we remember how at the end of october 22nd, when our first, so to speak, drones entered the sevastopol bay, then or on their approach, well, some of them were shot down precisely from helicopters of the black sea fleet, perhaps even now , but it is necessary that they are at sea, as they say, they were constantly there, they had time to fly there and so on, its not easy either, i also want to emphasize once again to our audience that this is actually enough. The ship is literally there , it went into the water in the 22nd year , when the fullscale russian invasion had already begun , to some extent, it can be said, i dont know, the pride, the achievement of the russian fleet in recent years, well, yes , this is the newest ship, just new, well, this is the newest, this is a generation of some new ships, and it was he who had already been introduced, well done, launched and introduced, as they say, in the campaign precisely. With the beginning of a fullscale largescale invasion, but can you globally assess, in principle, how much this particular ship is a painful loss for the russian fleet, and sum up the total losses of the russian fleet for two years of fullscale war . We all see obviously that these losses, losses are significant, looking at how to judge it from which point of view, lets say, tonnage so. This is said by the fifth part already second class sailors so expert in the Maritime World so evaluate tonnage, if there is a cruiser moskva starting from it by the number, i would judge by the number, how many ships were destroyed, lets say missile ships, how many large ships, such as the moskva, how many amphibious ships, but from all points of view you can judge, well, they say there, who says there is the fifth part , who says the third part, i think the truth is somewhere in the middle, but first of all it is big. And this, and this means that in one or another segment, there is an amphibious fleet or Something Else , the fleet is weaker, and not to mention the moral and psychological aspect. And here you are they said that probably soon the russian side will come to some conclusions, can you share your assumptions in detail, what these conclusions might be, whether they will, say, somehow change the tactics of waging war at. The sea, whether they have the forces, means, resources to change this tactic . Well, i think that this will be a change in the tactics of application, use, lets say, there, they will not be able not to visit, lets say, the sevastopol base, they will not be able not to go to sea, to sign that they are generally worthless, the fleet is worthless, can not all the time there, everyone will go to novorossiysk, tactics will constantly change, but lets add a little optimism in this plan. We havent seen it yet and everyone, we will have countermeasures against it, we will continue to develop, we have all heard about and expect the untapped, as they say , potential of underwater drones, we know about the Naval Coalition led by britain and norway, that is, we have completely legitimate reasons to hope that we will make our own based on their conclusions. We just quoted Dmitry Pletenchuk on the air, and he also said that sergey. Guarded the kerch strait in the territorial waters of ukraine. For people who are not related to to, to ships, to to the sea, to waging war at sea. Please tell me if this means that the kerch bridge now has a greater chance of being hit, is there any remaining after this ship was hit, is there enough infrastructure left to protect it, does the loss of this ship have no impact on security or the insecurity of the kerch crossing. Well , it probably doesnt affect security or insecurity, instead of this ship , one of the same type or a slightly different one with similar functions, technical combat capabilities will probably come , on the bridge we tell everyone, and we so hope that it is obvious, that it will be some kind of complex solution to the problem, probably that yes, no, no, no only the ship protects itself, it is a patrol, after all, it was patrolling, it is there, i think that it was the largest ship of the tonnage, the sky, and there is no point in keeping the other one there, well, they will again be like a target, they will probably lose any ship, its a pity, but here i am i did not expect that they would deliver the newest ship right there as a target, lets say, i understand that i can only assume that you may have some sources left, perhaps in the crimea, since this region is not foreign to you, perhaps you know , as in principle. In crimea, they are reacting to the latest attacks by ukrainian drones on russian ships, well , i think with hope, with some optimism, but. Not only in crimea, if we allow the Ukrainian Naval forces, where they have gone in the 14th year, i saw yesterday on the mood, we know what is the mood in odesa after such very tragic events, a few days ago, and odesa was so affected, but yesterday already at night, when we were hiding there together with my wife, together with our neighbors, i saw how they were watching what is happening, and already the first. Nights they found out about, they already found out about kotov, and they were happy, and they were happy about it, and lets say, in odessa now, well, much, much more people who doubt that russia is our the enemy, well, they increased, and significantly increased, i think that the same, well, not the same, but certain processes there are also similar cases in crimea, and you see, they film, they comment on us. What kind of videos can we judge, how some people are happy, cannot hide this joy and you and then it is posted, as they say on the internet, these comments are not always censored, which is true , thank you very much for your comment, oleg chubuk , spokesman for the command of the ukrainian navy, was on Radio Liberty from 2010 to 2017, and i also note that the destruction of a russian ship in crimea was preceded by a series of explosions on the peninsula, local publications and telegram channels with reference to the residents of crimea reported on sounds of explosions in the area of ​​kerch and the kerch bridge. In total, as people wrote, five explosions were heard, and the crossing connecting the occupied peninsula with russia was closed to cars and even trains all last night. There were about nine trains that stopped the traffic. And russian prowar telegram channels even before it became known about the damage. Damn serhii kotov wrote that at night crimea was also attacked by drones, their target was supposedly the kerch bridge, but later it became known that the ship was hit serhiy kotov, i will also note two more words, i will remind you that it was launched on january 29, 2021, and the construction lasted for almost four years, and only in july 22nd, in fact, when the fullscale construction was already underway. Russias fullscale aggression against ukraine, this sergey kotov joined the Russian Black Sea fleet. By and large, as our previous expert oleg chubuk said, it was to some extent the pride of the Russian Black Sea fleet, a ship of a new generation, so to speak. Well , just now joins our broadcast volodymyr zablotskyi, naval expert, reviewer of the defense express military portal. Volodymyr, good evening. Good evening, glory to ukraine, thank you for the invitation. Glory to heroes. I. How would you assess the losses of serhii kotov, the ship serhii kotov for russia . Well, minus one more unit, a modern, combat, combat surface ship, 1,300 tons of firstclass iron, lets say, the ironclad went to sea, the enemy lost a maneuverable, lets say, platform, which was used by him in operations to provide transport. Cargo to syria to, that is, to the bosphorus and back, it was such a highspeed unit, it was of a modular design, which many here believe that it was a missile corvette, it is not quite so, it was a corvette er, lets say, on order, that is, if there was need, some modular designs could be removed and missile weapons installed, but at the moment there is no such. Weapons on it and none of the four that were built, so you can say that it is only a patrol ship, are you right you say that it is possible to say that it is only patrol ship, is it correct to assume or claim that serhiy kotov guarded the kerch bridge, including that he performed patrolling tasks on the approaches to the kerch bridge, including along the coast. Er, temporarily occupied crimea, and including, one of these ships participated in the maintenance of the stop of a panamanian dry cargo with the landing of a maintenance party, a helicopter, it was broadcast very widely, well , these are such tasks, because they cannot do anything else, in them there is no shock weapon, thats why. How do you think after this russia will strengthen security. Crossings and whether it has enough means of other ships for this, what kind of ships they may be, how far they can be, so to speak, become another attack. You know , to say that this is a critical loss, i cannot , but painful, yes, it is quite a painful loss for the black sea fleet, because it is a platform, although it does not have shock weapons, it has powerful electronics, it can whistle radar intelligence, radio reconnaissance, hydroacoustic reconnaissance, that is, to listen to underwater spaces, what is happening there. Not some saboteurs are coming there, etc. , etc. , well, instead of that, well, they still have about three dozen fsb coast guard ships at their disposal , with the prospect of a possible increase in fsb coast guard ships, they are also not combat ships, they also only have artillery weapons, nothing else, but to patrol like that somewhere you highlight something. The situation , they can, by the way, since the 14th year they have been guarding the captured boyko towers from the coast of the crimea and all the way there, probably to the borders of the odesa deposit, and after the 22nd year, after the already open aggression, from zmiyna island to the crimean coast, these were the ships of the fsb, so nothing interferes with them, they also have losses, several hours were sunk and damaged. But nevertheless, well, they are suitable units for this role , as far as what these ukrainian underwater drones are doing, as far as this is a unique phenomenon and unique events that we observe in the black sea, for your expert environment, these are truly unique events, its a war, lets say, with elements of. Remote warfare of the future, about which experts and, lets say, military analysts wrote 510 years ago, they believed that there will be a remote war, where people will not see each other, and everything will be decided by Remote Technology at long distances, drones, robots, surface, underwater, air, land and etc. , etc. , here we see. Elements of this, by the way, the first such operation was a combined, airsea attack on sevastopol, it was on the 22nd of the year, on october 29, it seems that ukraine does not exactly write the back here. And tell me, please, if we are already talking about drones, and you allow that these same drones, which hit russian ships, may one day hit the same kerch bridge, well, maybe they will have to be modernized somehow. After all , the bridge will have to be hit only with something from the air with conventional taurus . You know, as they say, never say never, eh here anything can happen, those who make decisions, they also have a good imagination, and eh, if it is necessary to hit such an object, then there will be means and forces, like us we can see from the first two blows, well, it was inflicted with such forces that it was simply impossible to predict. Here i am i think that there will be some combination of what we know and what we do not know yet, because the enemy is learning, he is putting up barriers, he is making some means there, but we are also not standing still, and we are also doing Something Like this, recently there was a demonstration of what we can and what became known in the press, well, its amazing, there are such means that, well, you cant even imagine, and they can be used, including in this direction, and not only in this direction, the fact is that, for example, drones, er, lets say kamikaze is, well, the descendants of those firebrands of the former steam flotilla, who at one time set fire and launched downwind of the enemy fleet, which immediately caught fire and perished completely, because. It was impossible to escape, then it was improved, then the torpedo was invented, then something, something different, here they returned to the same branders, who themselves go to the ram, die, but they do not go without a crew, they follow a team for hundreds of kilometers, and maybe for thousands, this is already Something Else , and the enemy cannot do anything about it, because well, surface drones, but a drone. They can be unmanned and underwater, even surface unmanned boats, the same ones such as magura, this is part of the search and strike. Lex, which provides for the presence of intelligence means, means of ammunition delivery and a staff structure that makes decisions, management decisions, what to do next, who to attack, from which sides, plus the corresponding tactics, as we see in recent cases, the three recent cases with missile by boat ivanivets, vdk, Caesar Kunikov and the last case with. Serhii kotov, the tactic is that in advance intelligence determines the target for strikes, determines the forces and means that can be used and puts them in the waiting area, then a decision is made, the appropriate moment, usually in the dark, to attack the enemy, to attack from different directions, to deprive. The ability to move and then finish, by the way, the last attack on kotov was 100 successful, why . Because of the five drones that attacked, all five hit the target, at least, well, there could have been six, i suppose, but five hits were accurate, and for such a ship, 94 m is death, because those more from two sides and. On the video that was shown, we saw that the ship turned to starboard, and as far as i understand, this was already, this was not the first attempt by the ukrainian side to attack this ship, at least about it was claimed today in these russian prowar, prokremlin, prowar, or rather public, that there had already been attempts to attack this ship, yes. Indeed, these ships have already been attacked more than once, three out of four were damaged, some even twice, the cat was also damaged, but this there were hits using previous tactics, that is, anything to damage the ship so that it at least gets out of order, because a repair ship is also not a combat ship, it is also a waste of resources, and the main thing is that it will not cause damage, and then it was decided that since we have to. Attack and destroy, that is, to bring to not a semifinished victory, but a fullfledged victory, that the ship will be destroyed, it was decided to use this tactic, in general, a swarm, when the target is attacked from different sides, when the opponent cannot to concentrate on one target, that is, if he fires on the right, then on the left he will be attacked either from two sides or from four at once, at the same time, and it gave, well,. Which was attacked, although it was in full combat readiness, it is a ship, who was supposed to fight drones, but you see, then there was tsizzar kunikov, well, here he finally got his way, as they say, its not yet evening, but tell me, please, but globally, in what position is the russian fleet now, because once it. Was a point of pride there for the kremlin, in particular, how would you have now described the situation of the russian fleet, the russian fleet as a whole or the black sea fleet of the black sea fleet, i apologize, yes , the black sea fleet, the black sea fleet, well, almost pitiful, lets say so, because it cannot help itself, it has no single task, except to protect this bridge and tasks of terrorists. Does not carry out missile strikes on the territory of ukraine, because the rest he cannot prevent us from conducting sea trade, we expelled him from the northwestern part of the black sea equator and ships cannot enter there they take risks, they even lay mines, they tried with airplanes, su24m, two airplanes were shot down, one seems to have dropped a mine or two there, there was an explosion of dry cargo last year, well, its like that, here. Up to 30 destroyed and damaged ships with a country that almost does not have its own fleet, it says something, and it will be appreciated, it is already being studied, lets say, by tactics, military institutions of western countries, and even