Another ship of the Russian Navy was partially sunk as a result of a major Ukrainian attack on Tuesday, writes Radio Free Europe. Ukrainian forces announced on Tuesday that they had carried out an airstrike on the Novocherkassk Ropucha amphibious assault ship, which was stuck in eastern Crimea in the port of Feodosia.

Ukraine believes that it managed to damage another ship with an attack on the landing ship “Novocherkask” in the port of Feodosia in Crimea.

“We need additional information in Feodosia about all the affected objects. It is quite likely that another ship was damaged, because everything in the port infrastructure is nearby,” Nataliya Humenyuk, spokeswoman for the Southern Operational Command, said on Tuesday.

The first satellite images of the port of Feodosia, taken in the afternoon of December 26, confirm the statements of the spokesperson of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Nataliya Humenyuk, according to which, after the attack on the giant amphibious ship “Novocherkask”, another ship nearby, as reported by Radio Europa Liberă, was damaged and partially sunk.

After analyzing images and satellite photos, Free Europe managed to find out from open sources that it is an old training vessel UTS-150.

In the satellite images published by journalist Mark Krutov, the amphibious ship “Novocherkask” is in a red frame, and the second ship is in a yellow one.

Russia acknowledged the attack

Russia acknowledged the attack, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation said that the ship “Novocherkask” was “damaged in the course of repelling the attack of the Armed Forces”, and also added that during the air battle, Russian air defense forces shot down two bombers. Ukrainian Su-24 fired guided missiles at the ship. Kyiv denies the loss of the plane.

But Radio Free Europe notes that photos published this afternoon, taken in the port of Feodosia, show that almost nothing remains of Novocherkassk. Such extensive damage could have been caused by an explosive charge detonated on the ship.

And the Crimean authorities tried to downplay the scale of the incident. Local residents interviewed by Radio Europa Liberă said the damage in the city was worse. According to them, the blast wave broke the windows of “dozens of houses” in the central part of the city. In addition, the traffic of two streets near the port of Feodosia was blocked for several hours.

At night, until the fire was extinguished and the danger of explosions remained, residents of several streets were forcibly evacuated to temporary accommodation points in two schools of the city. According to some reports, about 350 people were forced to leave their homes.

There are conflicting data on the number of victims. Serhiy Aksyonov, an official sent by Moscow to Crimea, claims that we are talking about one dead and two wounded, while the local administration of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia reported one dead and four wounded.

According to Russian sources cited by Meduza, more Russian sailors will be missing after the Ukrainian attack.

According to unofficial information, part of the ship’s crew was on board at the time of the explosion. It is not known whether any of the officers and sailors managed to leave Novocherkassk before the ammunition explosion. The ship’s crew consists of 98 people.

The Astra Telegram channel, quoted by Meduza, reported on Wednesday morning that there were 77 sailors on board the ship: 33 of them are considered missing, 19 injured. There is no official confirmation of these figures. Russia usually does not provide accurate data on the damage caused.

The extent of damage: the wreckage of the ship came several hundred meters to the port

The wreckage of the amphibious assault ship “Novocherkask” is said to have fallen between neighborhoods in Feodosia after the heavy explosions that followed the Ukrainian attack on Tuesday morning. They were presented by a TV channel in Crimea, but it was quickly removed from social networks, notes Radio Free Europe, which geolocated the place where the wreckage of the ship was discovered and calculated that it is several hundred meters from it to Novocherkassk.

The building of the Feodosiya station, located right on the city embankment, suffered significant damage from the night airstrike: plaster fell in the waiting room, walls collapsed and windows were broken. Work at the Feodosia station has been suspended indefinitely, all passenger trains and electric trains have been temporarily diverted to another station.

The building of the Ivan Aivazovsky National Art Gallery and the monument to the artist installed in front of it were not damaged, although it is only a hundred meters away from the port from the station building.

The Ukrainian military managed to sink Novocherkask on the second attempt. In March 2022, the ship was in the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk, where it was fired upon by Ukrainian missiles. Then the landing craft was damaged, at least three sailors on board were killed. In the same attack, the Ukrainian military managed to sink another landing ship of the Black Sea Fleet “Saratov”.

Novocherkassk became another irreversible loss of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in a full-scale war against Ukraine.

Earlier, the Ukrainian Navy calculated that since February 20, 2022, Russia has lost 15 ships in the Black and Azov Seas, and another 12 have been damaged. “In the last four months, 20% of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was destroyed. Russia’s dominance in the Black Sea is now in doubt,” British Defense Minister Grant Shapps commented on the destruction of the Novocherkassk ship.