1st Rank Captain Explains How They Sank Caesar Kunikov Large Landing Ship
- 14.02.2024, 13:26
Ukrainian intelligence officers found a “moment of weakness.”
Reserve 1st rank captain, deputy chief of staff of the Ukrainian Navy in 2004-2020, Andriy Ryzhenko, on Radio NV, commented on the destruction of the large landing ship Caesar Kunikov, which was hit by Magura V5 maritime attack drones on February 14 in the Black Sea:
— The operation was very successful, fruitful. I think we see the Ukrainian military doing serious work to correct the mistakes that were made before. My understanding is that this landing craft was attacked in an area where it would be difficult for it to get any help.
The landing ship itself does not have many means of self-defense. Although, for example, it is known that ships of this class were equipped with heavy machine guns and even artillery mounts.
It turned out that this ship (this is my guess) was in Novorossiysk at that time, it was making the transition to Sevastopol. I understand that it was carrying something on board. There is no need for it to carry armored vehicles and troops on board now. They may even have brought Shaheds, because Shaheds are launched from the Crimea: from Chauda, from Balaklava, from Belbek. Just such a delivery is perhaps the safest — first to Novorossiysk, and then from Novorossiysk in this way.
As I understand it, Ukrainian intelligence became aware of such a transition, and a link of attack drones was planned. As I understand it, this is Magura 5 (the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine has already confirmed that the ship was destroyed by these drones — edit.). And they, with the same composition — six units, as was the case with the Ivanovets — simply carried out an attack on this ship using the method of successive strikes, with a short interval. This caused a very serious fire to start, and then the ship sank. This is exactly at the southernmost point of the Crimean peninsula.
Therefore the operation is successful. And this is already the fourth ship of this class, Project 775, which was completely destroyed or very seriously damaged in the Black Sea region. I think that several ships, and in general Russia will not be able to carry out landing missions.
[The large landing ship] was within the territorial sea of Ukraine, that is, a 12-mile zone from the Crimea, this is the recommended route.
As I understand it, this ship was monitored by Ukrainian intelligence officers and they chose the meeting point, the attack point for these drones in accordance with this information. Then, when the drones came out... It was at night, and at night a drone is not as easy to detect as during the day. Moreover, it is necessary to constantly keep forces there that will carry out these search operations at night. The regions are large, near Sevastopol they do this very densely, but for other regions there is simply not enough strength and resources. The same thing happened with the Ivanovets, remember? I think that our intelligence received information when it was leaving Lake Donuzlav and they caught it there.
Same here. The Russians are also building up their defense system there, but they simply don’t have the physical strength to do it. Ukrainian intelligence officers do analysis, analytics and look for these moments of weakness and use them very successfully.