Direct attack on the Crimean offensive Russian submarine heavily damaged

Direct attack on the Crimean offensive: Russian submarine heavily damaged

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    The published images show the success of the Ukrainian air attack on an important Russian Navy shipyard. The Russian submarine was heavily damaged.

    Sevastopol – The images are clear: they show a hole in the hull of a Russian submarine that was damaged in a Ukrainian missile attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters in the occupied port city last week. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement from Kiev that a special unit of the Ukrainian army marked the targets behind enemy lines. Three of the ten cruise missiles fired hit the target. The submarine “Rostov-on-Don” and the landing ship “Minsk”, which were in dry dock at the shipyard, were particularly damaged.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack involved 10 missiles and three unmanned surface vehicles or drones, seven of which were shot down. The missiles used were said to be air-launched Storm Shadow and/or SCALP-EG missiles, which can be fired from Ukrainian Air Force Su-24 Fencer fighters.

    Ukrainian Air Force strike penetrates submarine hull

    Published photos of the submarine show the extent of the attack. The submarine was hit twice, reports the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), which published the images. The first hit is on the top of the submarine’s bow. The second hit was on the starboard side of the boat, in the area behind the wheelhouse.

    CIT showed the footage to an independent Norwegian naval analyst, Thord Are Iversen. The online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported that it concluded that both blows penetrated the submarine’s sturdy hull. According to the expert, the torpedo rooms and accommodation must have been damaged, possibly also the auxiliary rooms and batteries behind them. It is difficult to judge from the images to what extent the other departments are exhausted. This depended on whether the hatches between the submarine’s individual compartments were closed or not.

    Russia, Saint Petersburg.  - Admiralty Shipyards OJSC launched the Project 636.3 Rostov-on-Don submarine for the Russian Black Sea FleetSubmarine “Rostov-on-Don” being launched in Saint Petersburg © imago stock&people

    British experts and intelligence do not believe the Russian submarine will be used again

    According to the assessment of Experts | With such damage, the submarine will probably no longer be able to be used in the active fleet until the end of the war. For possible repairs, the submarine would have to be transported to the Admiralty’s shipyards in St. Petersburg, which in itself would be a major logistical undertaking. The port of Novorossiysk, located further east on the coast of mainland Russia, does not have the facilities necessary to fully maintain the submarine. There are floating docks elsewhere in Crimea, but they also do not have the capacity to carry out major repair work, reports the online magazine “The Warzone”.

    The scam likely caused millions of dollars in damage

    According to the CIT, repairs on this scale are not economical and it would be easier to build a new ship of the same class. This is also reported by the British secret service. Any attempt to put the submarine back into service would likely take many years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. This seriously calls into question the official Russian narrative that the submarine will be repaired and operational again. The loss of Rostov-on-Don is the loss of one of four Black Sea Fleet submarines that played an important role in the Ukrainian War and the expansion of Russian power in the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean.

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    Blocked dry dock could complicate Russian Navy fleet maintenance

    Additionally, the damaged submarine and stricken landing ship now block the shipyard infrastructure. According to British intelligence, there is a realistic possibility that the complex task of removing debris from the dry docks will leave them out of action for many months. This presents the Black Sea Fleet with a major challenge in maintaining fleet maintenance. (Paper)