The Ukrainian Armed Forces showed a strike on Russian ships of the 4th rank
Ukraine, using a Turkish-made Bayraktar drone, destroyed two Raptor-class boats of the Black Sea Fleet in the area of Zmeiny Island.
The press service of the Ukrainian Navy reported this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Today at dawn, two Russian Raptor-class boats were destroyed near Zmeiny Island. “Bayraktar” is working,” the Ukrainian Navy said.
The head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Ermak, also reported this on his blog:
“What a beauty from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian Raptor-class boats were destroyed near Zmeiny Island.
As evidence, the Ukrainian Ukrainian Armed Forces cite aerial footage showing the defeat of the boats.
At the same time, military expert reserve Navy officer Vasily Dandykin, in a comment to PolitNavigator, expressed doubt that the incident recorded on video occurred near the island:
“First of all, what are the Raptors doing there at Zmeiny? This is quite a long distance for them. These are, after all, short-range patrol boats - we have larger ones. And these are the boats that guard the approaches to the base and are used to guard and patrol the main base. They can show anything now.
Moreover, “Bayraktar” strikes one target. There have been fakes on their part so many times already, so it’s hard to say - the very long distance from Zmeinoye to Sevastopol is not the area of responsibility of these boats. They have a crew of three people, it’s unclear what the point of using them in the Zmeinoye area is,” Dandykin said.
It should be noted that Project 03160 Raptor patrol boats are classified as 4th rank ships in the Russian Navy.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces demonstrated a strike on Russian 4th-rank ships.