Ukraine Makes Rare Admission About Putin's Black Sea Fleet

Ukraine's military announced on Wednesday they were successful in a morning attack on the command post of the Russian Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol in Crimea.

The announcement is something of a rarity for Kyiv, as Ukraine's military does not often claim credit for attacks on either Crimea or inside Russia territory. The first documented instance of Kyiv admitting it carried out a strike on Crimea came on September 7.

The extent of damage to the Black Sea Fleet base is not currently known, but the announcement followed earlier reports from local media and Telegram channels of explosions in Crimea and of a strike using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles on the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters building.

Attacks in the Black Sea and Crimea have increased in recent weeks, and the region remains a large talking point in the war Russian President Putin launched on Ukraine in February 2022. Putin previously invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly vowed to reclaim the territory for his nation.

"The Armed Forces of Ukraine successfully attacked the command post of the occupiers' Black Sea Fleet near Verkhniosadove near the temporarily occupied city of Sevastopol on the morning of 20 September. Glory to the Armed Forces of Ukraine!" the Directorate of Strategic Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (StratCom) wrote on Telegram.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense via email for comment.

The Telegram account of Astra, which is a project of independent Russian journalists, posted a video Wednesday morning of a missile shooting across the sky in Crimea and wrote "local residents have reported that the Main Command Post of the Black Sea Fleet had been damaged."

Crimea.Realities, a regional news outlet of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, also reported on the sounds of air defense systems being used in Sevastopol.

Andriy Yusov, spokesperson of the Main Intelligence of Ukraine (GUR), commented on strikes on positions in the region in comments made to the Kyiv Post.

"Missile strikes are being launched on the military facilities of the invaders in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian Crimea," he said. "The planned work of the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine continues."

Though the scale of Wednesday's assault is not known, the attack comes a week after a major strike on the Black Sea Fleet's shipyard in Sevastopol. During that incident, the Minsk Ropucha-class large landing ship and Rostov-on-Don Kilo-class attack submarine were severely damaged.

The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence (MoD) later said in an intelligence update that while the Russian Ministry of Defense has been "downplaying the damage to the vessels, open-source evidence indicates the Minsk has almost certainly been functionally destroyed, while the Rostov has likely suffered catastrophic damage."