It was last Friday that Ukraine carried out a drone attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in occupied Crimea – an attack that appears to have hit Russia hard.
On Monday, Ukraine said the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Viktor Solokov, was among the more than 30 killed in the attack and, according to the same statement, the headquarters were so destroyed that it was “beyond reconstruction”.
The information has not yet been able to be confirmed by independent sources.
Continued attacks
Despite the loss of the headquarters, Russian warships now continue to fire missiles at Ukrainian targets but not with the same results. This is claimed by Dmytro Pletenchuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian navy, in an interview with CNN.
– At this moment, the Russian Navy lost the person who actually manages all this and his staff who manage the fleet together with him, he says and continues:
– It is about a large grouping that requires a large number of managers to run all processes to make the fleet work as a single mechanism. Imagine the core part of this mechanism becoming unusable.
Pletenchuk believes that Vladimir Putin does not control the fleet himself, but that the president trusts his admirals – officers who are now said to be dead.
– Therefore, from now on, they will have problems with the control of the troops, he tells CNN.
Leaked information
At the same time reporting Kyiv Post that the attack on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet was prompted by the fact that Russian officers allegedly leaked sensitive information to a Ukrainian resistance group in Crimea – this after they were not paid.
The officers allegedly received financial compensation in exchange for the information, which was then passed on to state authorities and used to plan the attack, according to information provided by the Kyiv Post.
– The Russian military is well aware of the existence of the partisan movement and is throwing all its forces and means to suppress it and identify our agents. The growing resistance among the residents of Crimea confuses them very much, a spokesperson for the Atesh movement told the newspaper.