Ukrainian Forces Continue Attacks On Russia's Black Sea Assets

It is a 'target rich environment' and Ukraine continues to seize the opportunity. JL

Brendan Cole reports in Newsweek:

Ukraine has (continued) to deliver a number of strikes on Russian Black Sea Fleet assets such as in September when naval drones attacked a port in the city of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region"GUR (Ukrainian intelligence special forces) soldiers fire a 12.7 mm machine gun at the burning Petro Godovanets drilling rig during a night raid in the Black Sea."

Video has been released which purports to show a battle next to energy infrastructure in the Black Sea which has been fiercely fought over during the course of Moscow's invasion.

 

The undated and unverified clip initially broadcast on Ukrainian channel TSN on Sunday shows nighttime footage it described as "exclusive" in which shooting and explosions can be heard close to the Crimean peninsula. The caption underneath the pictures said, according to a translation, "the Ukrainian military managed to push the Russians out of the Petr Godovanets."

 

Ukraine News Live posted the same clip on X, writing, "GUR soldiers fire a 12.7 mm machine gun at the burning Petro Godovanets drilling rig during a night raid in the Black Sea."

Meanwhile, WarTranslated posted the same clip on X, writing that it was "an attempt to storm the 'Petr Godovanets,' one of the gas production platforms in the Black Sea

 

"The crews of the special unit 'Dozor' of the State Border Guard Service and the GUR (intelligence agency) are working," WarTranslated wrote.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for comment.

The Petr (Petro) Godovanets is one of four gas drilling platforms that Ukraine said in September 2023 it had retaken control of, following their seizure by the pro-Russian authorities in Crimea after Moscow's 2014 annexation of the peninsula.

 

It is not clear who is in control of the infrastructure known as the so-called Boyko Towers between Crimea and Odesa in the northwestern Black Sea.

This screen grab shown on Ukrainian television on September 29, 2024 purports to show a push for the Petro Godovanets platform in the Black Sea. The energy infrastructure has been fiercely fought over since the...  Screen grab via social media

Their location near Snake Island, which was a scene of fighting at the start of the war, makes them a key strategic asset and the platforms can also serve as bases for force deployment, helicopter pads, and long-range missile systems.

 

Yörük Işık, a geopolitical analyst based in Istanbul who runs the Bosphorus Observer, told Newsweek it was unclear what had happened but the rig had been very unstable for a long time and was not maintained.

Russian forces often make reconnaissance missions around there using raptors which are very fast small boats and they "might have made an attempt to land and they were intercepted," he said.

"There has been no permanent Ukrainian settlement on it so it is possible that they came, they landed, tried to either recapture it or booby trap it," he added.

 

Ukraine has delivered a number of strikes on Russian Black Sea Fleet assets such as in September when naval drones attacked a port in the city of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region.

The spate of attacks has forced Russia to relocate many of its warships away from Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk.

Ukraine has ramped up its attacks on Russia's ships using its Magura V5 maritime drones, with Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate saying in May the operations had caused $500 million worth of damage to Russia's naval vessels.

The Magura V5 drone has been described by Kyiv as the "best weapon available to Ukraine" to target the Black Sea fleet, but Ukraine's military reportedly has two other sea drones that can hit Novorossiysk—Sea Baby and Kozak Mamai.