According to experts, around a hundred may have died when Ukraine bombed a Russian ship on Tuesday.
The incident has made Vladimir Putin “absolutely furious” – and vengeful.
“Many commanders are being removed to be sent to the front,” a Ukrainian partisan group said on Telegram.
On the night of Tuesday, Ukraine bombed the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk – which was sunk. The ship was at Feodosija on the southern coast of the annexed Crimean peninsula, and footage that appears to show the sequence of events shows a large fireball rising from the port.
The attack has made Russian President Vladimir Putin “absolutely furious” – and the desire for revenge, according to a Ukrainian partisan group, writes Independent.
According to the Atesh group, a guerrilla group in Crimea, Putin has now ordered raids all over Feodosia and is also expected to punish the Crimean peninsula’s air defense forces.
“The flywheel of oppression has begun to turn faster. Since yesterday, local residents have been attacked throughout the city. Their smartphones have been taken away and their houses searched,” writes Atesj on the Telegram messaging service.
According to Telegraph Atesh believes that the raids were carried out in search of people in the area who may have collaborated with the Ukrainian military to carry out the attack.
“It is reported that Putin is absolutely furious over the destruction of the large landing ship Novocherkassk. An order has been issued to punish the air defense forces of Crimea. It is expected that many commanders will be removed and sent to the front to join attack groups.”
“100 may have died”
Pictures from, among others, the Ukrainian defense show that Novocherkassk is completely destroyed.
The ship had been used, among other things, to transport ammunition and personnel to the Zaporizhzhya front in southern Ukraine, according to a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, writes the Independent.
At least 52 of the 77 people in the ship’s crew have been reported missing or injured, according to Russian news service Astra, according to the Telegraph. The British newspaper writes that military analysts have estimated that up to 100 people may have been killed in the attack.
Atesj’s report comes at the same time as drone images of what looks like a Russian execution of prisoners of war have spread on the internet, writes the Telegraph. The incident was filmed by a Ukrainian drone.
Suspect executions
“The Russian army captured three Ukrainian defenders during a combat encounter near the village of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhya region,” Kyiv’s General Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement, according to the Telegraph.
“An hour later, in violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the occupiers shot them.”
Analysts at the American think tank Institute for the study of war Institute for the study of war (ISW) confirmed the drone footage, according to the Telegraph. ISW writes in its report that on December 13 it observed how Russian soldiers in the Robotyne area used Ukrainian prisoners of war as human shields.
On Thursday evening, Ukrainian authorities announced that a civilian cargo ship from Panama, which was to pick up Ukrainian grain, had been hit by a Russian mine in the Black Sea and blown up. Two crew members were injured, writes the Independent.