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A Ukrainian attack hit a Russian warship moored in Crimea early on Tuesday, in what appeared to be one of the most significant strikes against Moscow\u2019s prized Black Sea fleet in months.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement<\/a> that it had destroyed the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, in the southeastern Crimean port of Feodosia overnight. Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry told the Tass state news agency<\/a> that the ship had been damaged in an attack using \u201caircraft guided missiles,\u201d but did not say whether the vessel had been permanently disabled.<\/p>\n Videos<\/a> of the attack<\/a> that appeared to be taken by local residents and were released by the Ukrainian Air Force showed a huge explosion that produced a large fireball, followed by a giant cloud of smoke and fire billowing into the night sky. The footage could not be immediately verified, but Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of Crimea, said that the attack had started a fire<\/a> in Feodosia. One person was killed and two others were wounded in the assault, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller!\u201d Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine\u2019s Air Force, wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app<\/a> celebrating the strike, which he noted came after Ukrainian missiles sank the flagship of Russia\u2019s Black Sea Fleet last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Ukrainian military has long maintained that the war cannot be won without taking aim at Russian assets and operations in Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n In recent months, Ukraine has sharply accelerated the pace of strikes on the peninsula<\/a>, which Russia\u2019s military uses as a logistics hub for its hold on southern Ukraine \u2014 stockpiling fuel, ammunition and other supplies to be funneled to the battlefields \u2014 but also as a launchpad for attacks on Ukraine.<\/p>\n The Black Sea Fleet has been used to launch devastating precision cruise missile strikes deep inside Ukraine. In an attempt to reduce the threat, the Ukrainian military has repeatedly targeted the fleet this year<\/a> \u2014 claiming in September to have killed its commander<\/a>.<\/p>\n Those attacks were significant achievements for a country without warships of its own<\/a> and rare successes in a year marked by disappointing efforts to break through Russian defensive lines on the battlefield.<\/p>\n The Ukrainian Air Force said that it used cruise missiles in Tuesday\u2019s attack, which took place at around 2:30 a.m. local time. Russian news media<\/a> reported that the 360-foot long Novocherkassk was capable of transporting up to 10 tanks and 340 troops.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Ukrainian military said it suspected that the ship was carrying Iranian-made attack drones for use in the war. Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian army in the south, told national television that \u201cit is clear that such a large detonation was caused not just by fuel or ammunition of the ship itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrii Klymenko, the head of the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies<\/a>, agreed. \u201cJudging by the video of the explosion, which was very powerful, it was carrying explosives: either shells or missiles, or, as some people say, drones,\u201d he wrote in a text message.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n