Footage shared by Ukraine’s intelligence service on Thursday showed what it claims are two of its sea drones striking Russian naval vessels near Crimea.
The video, shared by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, features a sea drone dodging Russian fire, before exploding next to a Russian patrol ship.
Ukraine intelligence said the attack on the two ships was carried out using Magura V5 drones, and that Russia tried to neutralize the drones using combat aircraft, artillery, and small arms.
However, they failed to stop them from completing their mission, it said.
Business Insider was unable to independently verify details of the attack.
The claimed attack is just the latest example of Ukraine’s devastating use of sea drones against Russian naval assets in the Black Sea.
In November, Ukraine said its sea drones hit and sank two Russian Black Sea Fleet landing ships at a port on the occupied Crimean peninsula.
Ukraine ramped up sea drone attacks in February, with one attack taking out the warship Ivanovets using naval drones powered by Jet Skis, and another causing the explosion of the Black Sea Fleet’s Project 775 Ropucha-class landing ship, the Caesar Kunikov, Ukraine intelligence said at the time.
A month later, it said it sunk the Sergei Kotov with a sea drone.
Despite having no real navy of its own, Ukraine has taken out about a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to estimates, and has forced it to limit its Black Sea operations and relocate vessels away from occupied Crimea to a port in Novorossiysk.
