The video which was released on Friday morning shows two missiles slamming into a vessel believed to be 19 miles east of Snake (or Zmiinyi) Island, causing it to erupt in a fireball.
The Ukrainian military has released a video feed footage of another Russian ship coming under attack while transiting towards Snake Island.
The video which was released on Friday morning shows two missiles slamming into a vessel believed to be 19 miles east of Snake (or Zmiinyi) Island, causing it to erupt in a fireball.
The Ukrainian Navy in a statement on Twitter, claimed the vessel to be the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Project 22870 rescue tug Vassily Bekh, described as carrying ammunition, weapons and personnel to reinforce Russian troops on the island—as well as a Tor air defence system.
Forbes reported that unconfirmed Russian sources apparently claimed that 10 of 33 crew on board were missing and the rest injured.
As with footage of several other vessels struck by Ukraine’s military, the attack is recorded by a video feed displaying the distinctive user interface of Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 drones operated by the Ukrainian Navy and Air Force.
But while Bayraktars have knocked out smaller Russian vessels with laser-guided anti-tank missiles, the video shows two missiles approaching perpendicular to the viewer at relatively slow speed and at low altitude—i.e. clearly, not launched by the overflying drone. Quite likely the drone was instead earlier used to transmit coordinates to land-based missile launchers to facilitate the attack.
Forbes also said that a Ukrainian regional official claimed the attack was made by land-based Harpoon anti-ship systems recently delivered to Ukraine by the United States and Denmark. That seems to correspond with the sea-skimming cruise missiles seen in the video.
Other sources allege, however, said the attack was by a Brimstone missile supplied by the U.K. These supersonic missiles are quite fast but have only a 14-pound warhead.
Additionally, Ukraine has rushed into using indigenously developed Neptune land-based anti-ship missiles which might also have executed such an attack. Neptunes were responsible for the sinking of the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship the cruiser Moskva.
However, there was no way to avoid getting close to hostile Ukrainian shorelines to resupply the Russian garrison on Snake Island. To mitigate risks, Russia appears to have relied on smaller, more expendable vessels for the job.
That job proved dangerous indeed as Ukrainian Bayraktar drones picked off four Raptor-class patrol boats near the island, a Serna-class air cavity landing craft at the island’s pier and a helicopter in the middle of landing troops.
Despite Russian efforts to reinforce Snake Island’s air defences, the latest sinking shows that vessels sent to resupply the island will continue to be exposed to deadly attacks. The garrison itself could also grow more vulnerable to land-based attacks as Ukraine integrates HIMARS rocket artillery which can deliver precise GPS-guided strikes from over 40 miles away.