CNN –
Ukraine claimed on Tuesday to have carried out an airstrike in Crimea that destroyed a Russian Navy tank landing ship. This, if confirmed, would be the third major loss of Russian military equipment in less than a week.
In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk thanked the personnel involved in the “destruction of the large landing ship Novocherkask” while it was in the port of Feodosia in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula, which was illegally carried out in 2014 was annexed by Russia.
CNN cannot independently verify the claim, but videos posted on social media showed large explosions at the port of Feodosia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency TASS that the Novocherkask was “damaged” in a Ukrainian attack.
The Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, had previously admitted in a statement that there had been “an enemy attack.” [the] Feodosia region,” adding that “the detonation was stopped and the fire was localized.”
One person was killed and two were injured in the Ukrainian attacks, Aksyonov said in an update on Telegram, but did not mention the Novocherkaskers.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated his military on Tuesday for the attack on the Russian warship.
“I am grateful to our Air Force for the spectacular addition of another ship to the Russian Black Sea submarine fleet. “There will be no peaceful place for the occupiers in Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a statement.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported [President Vladimir Putin] “about the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Feodosia and the damage to the large landing ship Novocherkask,” the Kremlin said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to a US military fact sheet about the Novocherkask and the other ships in its Ropucha class, the 112.5-meter-long ship displaces about 3,450 tons, making it about the size of a US Navy littoral combat ship.
According to the US military, the Novocherkask has a crew of around 87 men and can accommodate 237 soldiers. It was not known how many people may have been on board the suspected Ukrainian attack.
The ship is designed for beach landings and features bow and stern doors as well as the ability to accommodate up to 25 armored personnel carriers on its vehicle deck.
Oleshchuk, the Ukrainian commander, said the ship was carrying Iranian-made Shahed attack drones.
He said the Novocherkask “followed” the Moskva, the guided-missile cruiser that was the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet before it sank in April 2022 after a Ukrainian missile strike.
Ukraine also claimed in September that the Novocherkask's sister ship, the Minsk, was destroyed in an attack on the Sevastopol naval base in Crimea.
The British Ministry of Defense reported that an analysis of open source information found that the Minsk was “almost certainly functionally destroyed” and that the Russian submarine Rostov-on-Don also suffered catastrophic damage in the attack.
If the destruction of the Novocherkask is confirmed, it could be the third time in the past week that the Russian military has suffered important losses in combat, according to Ukrainian sources.
On Christmas Eve, the Ukrainian Air Force said it destroyed a Su-24 fighter jet in the eastern Donetsk region and a Su-30SM fighter jet over the Black Sea.
And on Friday Zelensky said the country's armed forces had shot down three Russian Su-34 fighter jets.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat told Ukrainian media on Friday that Su-34 jets were “one of the newest aircraft” in service with the Russian army and were used for air strikes with bombs and missiles.
According to Ihnat, each aircraft can cost “at least $50 million.”
CNN was unable to confirm Russian aircraft losses.
But they would be a welcome victory for Ukraine after a period in which the nearly two-year war has not gone well for Kiev.
“The most useful headline for Kiev may be how unspeakably bleak the front lines now are for them. “The news is grim from almost every direction,” CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reported Dec. 17.
Walsh noted that Ukraine faced increased Russian attacks from the air and on the ground while international support for its war effort waned. This included Zelensky's failure to convince the US Congress to continue funding military equipment beyond the end of the year in Washington.
Shoigu said in his final conference call of the year on Tuesday that he believes the main goal of Russia's war effort in 2023 has been successfully achieved, emphasizing what he said was the disruption of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has requested 500,000 additional troops, David Arakhamia, leader of the parliamentary majority, said via Telegram on Monday.
The government is drafting a draft law on mobilization of troops to clarify the issue of troop recruitment, he added.
CNN's Olga Voitovych, Svitlana Vlasova, Mariya Knight, Anna Chernova and Esha Mitra contributed to this report.