On September 11, Ukrainian intelligence reported the destruction of a Russian Black Sea Fleet ship near Novorossiysk. ASTRA confirmed this information and provided details about the attack.

According to sources, a drone attacked the MPSV07 Spasatel Iljin ship on the afternoon of September 10 near the village of Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka (Novorossiysk). During the attack, the mayor of the city reported that “an uninhabited building was damaged by drone fragments at the entrance to Shirokaya Balka.” He added that “people were evacuated from the beaches in Shirokaya Balka, Abrau-Dyurso, and Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka.” Nobody was injuried during the attack.

According to ASTRA, the ship also suffered numerous damages as a result of the drone attack, and the ship’s captain, Roman Gorshkov, was hospitalized with multiple shrapnel wounds. ASTRA’s journalist managed to contact Gorshkov and get a comment:

“I’m fine, thank you. The ship is operational and has reached its destination,” Gorshkov replied.

“Spasatel Iljin” is a civilian rescue vessel. However, Ukrainian media outlets claim that the ship was primarily used for military and intelligence purposes.

“The Main Intelligence Directorate has made a mistake or deliberately distorted the information. The Russians have five ships of this project, not four, and another one is under construction in Kerch. There are two ships in Novorossiysk: the Demidov and the Iljin. The Demidov was commissioned in 2015, but it is currently operating in the Barents Sea. This leaves only the Iljin. Formally, all the vessels of the project are civilian and are part of the Maritime Rescue Service, but they are primarily used for military purposes. These are powerful units equipped with high tech equipment, and damaging them would be a significant success. In fact, the MPSV07 project, an Arctic rescue vessel, was developed by the Odessa Marine Engineering Bureau back in 2012,” military analyst Viktor Bosnyak told the Ukrainian newspaper Dumskaya.