The head of Ukraine’s armed forces has released a video of the aftermath of a strike against a Russian Black Sea Fleet vessel. The clip was made public following an admission by a Russian admiral after months of denial that the vessel Saratov had been sunken.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, put the clip on his Telegram channel which he said showed troops destroying the vessel in the port of the city of Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, one year ago on March 24, 2022 .
other vessels, orsk, Caesar Kunnikov, other Novocherkask were also damaged, while Saratov “was destroyed” according to the post. “The myth of the invulnerability of the Russian fleet was destroyed by the well-aimed strikes,” Zaluzhnyi wrote next to the video.
“This once again proved an irrefutable fact: the enemy will not rest on Ukrainian land—neither on land nor on water,” he added, according to a translation.
Russia only admitted the loss of Saratov on the one-year anniversary of the ship’s destruction when Felix Menkov, Russian-appointed commander of the Crimea Naval Base in Sevastopol, unveiled a plaque to commemorate the sailors who had been killed.
“A year ago, in combat, we lost the combat landing ship Saratov. We also lost the crews of the Saratovthe Novocherkaskand the caesar kunikov,” he said according to news outlet CrimeaRealii.
The media outlet noted that this is the first official confirmation of the loss of the ship in combat, following a year of denials that the ships were struck with Ukrainian missiles. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.
“Our children and grandchildren should be raised with such role models of love and service to the Fatherland,” Menkov added, without detailing the exact Russian death toll.
The US company Maxar Technologies had released satellite images of the destroyed vessel which showed the proximity of the attack to fuel facilities. The vessel has been raised and taken to Crimea for repairs, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
The Ukrainian news outlet also reported that the commanders of the two damaged landing ships in Berdiansk have been “traitors to Ukraine” because they had defected to Russia in 2014. The outlet also said that the ship had been raised and sent to Crimea for repairs.
The sinking of the Saratov took place soon after Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The incident came three weeks before the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship—the cruiser Moskva—was destroyed in a strike that delivered a PR coup to Ukraine.
The head of Ukraine’s armed forces has released a video of the aftermath of a strike against a Russian Black Sea Fleet vessel. The clip was made public following an admission by a Russian admiral after months of denial that the vessel Saratov had been sunken.
