A Russian attack submarine and an amphibious warfare ship were “almost certainly” knocked out of action in a missile strike on a Black Sea military shipyard, British officials said Friday.
On Wednesday, the landing ship Minsk and the Kilo-class submarine Rostov-On-Don were hit while in dry dock at the Sevmorzavod shipyard at Russia’s Sevastopol naval base, located in the disputed Crimean peninsula.
The attacks are believed to have come from British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles launched from a Ukrainian Air Force plane. “Despite the Russian Ministry of Defense 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,” British military officials said Friday.
The Rostov is one of only four submarines in the Black Sea Fleet capable of launching cruise missiles. They have played a major role in striking Ukraine and in projecting Russian power across the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. Merely removing the wreckage from the dry docks will place the Rostov and the Minsk out of use for “many months,” U.K. officials said.
“Any effort to return the submarine to service is likely to take many years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars,” U.K. officials said. “This would present the [Black Sea Fleet] with a significant challenge in sustaining fleet maintenance.”
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