Ukraine claimed on Tuesday to have carried out an airstrike in Crimea that destroyed a Russian Navy tank landing ship in what would be, if confirmed, the third instance of major losses of Russian military hardware in less than a week.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has reported to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin about a strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Feodosia and the ‘damage’ to the large landing ship Novocherkassk, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Dec. 26.
Surviving a missile strike is a formidable challenge for a ship, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in an interview with Radio Svoboda on Dec. 26, commenting on the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ attack on the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk.
Zaluzhnyi says Ukrainian troops remain in north of Marinka. Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed that the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk, docked at Feodosia in occupied Crimea, had been "damaged" by a Ukrainian missile strike in the early hours of Dec. 26, in a statement reported by the Russian state-run media outlet TASS.
A satellite image shows that in addition to the Novocherkassk, another ship partially sank as a result of the strike on the port of Feodosiia in occupied Crimea. Source: Radio Svoboda (Liberty), citing a satellite image from Planet.