Watch as an exploding Ukrainian drone dodges aerial fire to kill one of the small, high-speed Russian ships still fighting in the Black Sea

• Ukraine used an explosive naval drone to destroy a Russian military speedboat in Crimea on Monday.

• The footage shows the drone navigating through heavy aerial fire to strike the Russian boat.

• This is the latest attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which has been largely dispersed.

Explosive Ukrainian drones appear to be tracking smaller, faster ships in the Black Sea after Russia withdrew its largest warships following a series of devastating attacks.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, or HUR, said Monday its forces destroyed a Russian military speedboat equipped with a Magura V5 naval drone in Uzka Bay, located in the northwest corner of the Ukrainian peninsula. Occupied Crimea.

This is the latest Ukrainian strike against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This months-long drone and missile campaign forced Moscow to move many of its vulnerable assets away from the fleet’s headquarters in Crimea and closer to Russia, across the sea.

“Since fear of Ukrainian attacks forces the occupiers to hide large ships of the Black Sea Fleet away from the peninsula, fighting continues against high-speed maneuverable Russian military ships,” said the HUR, a branch of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. »wrote in a statement on the messaging platform Telegram, via translation.

Footage of the attack shared by Ukraine shows one of the naval drones coming under heavy fire from above, likely from an aircraft. The drone manages to escape the fire, which lands in the surrounding waters and heads towards the Russian boat parked on a dock.

The Russian boat appears to be covered with a camouflage tarpaulin. It is unclear whether troops were occupied there at the time of the attack. The video cuts off as the Ukrainian drone hits the ship. kyiv did not say whether it lost any drones in the attack.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that the Black Sea Fleet destroyed five Ukrainian drones near the northwest coast of Crimea. Moscow published footage on Telegram showing a helicopter opening fire on the water surface, and at one point an explosion can be seen. She did not acknowledge any of her own losses.

Business Insider was not immediately able to verify images of the two soldiers.

HUR identified the Russian vessel as a “Mongoose”, a $3 million multi-purpose vessel first produced in 2000 and capable of participating in combat operations, patrolling, and conducting search and rescue operations. rescue. These boats can be up to 65 feet long and are equipped with machine guns, automatic grenade launchers and man-portable air defense systems.

Ukrainian forces have relied heavily on their arsenals of Magura V5s and Sea Babies – another type of explosive naval drone – to damage and destroy numerous Russian warships in the Black Sea. Many of those targets were larger ships, unlike the one hit Monday.

Russia has been unable to coherently defend itself against this style of asymmetric warfare, despite a recent reshuffle of its naval leadership and new efforts to stem the threat. These efforts include additional protections in the port and equipping its crews with more machine guns, as well as additional combat air patrols.

A general in Ukraine’s security service, or SBU, previously told Business Insider that Moscow constantly has combat aircraft and helicopters patrolling around the western Black Sea, which would be consistent with the video shared earlier by the Russian Ministry of Defense. kyiv nevertheless managed to target Russian ships with its drones.

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