Naval Drone pov of the sinking of Cezar Kunikov RU troop transport ship [13.02.2024]

2 months ago
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Footage of a coordinated naval drone attack on the RU troop transport ship the "Cezar Kunikov".

From Wiki:

On 14 February 2024, Ukrainian Armed Forces released a statement through Telegram that they had attacked the Tsezar Kunikov using MAGURA V5 unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) while the ship was off Alupka in Crimea.[19] Loud explosions were reportedly heard in the region, according to posts on social media.[6] The attack was carried out by the special forces unit "Group 13", which also carried out the 1 February attack on the Russian missile boat Ivanovets.[19][7] In the statement, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine said, "Tsezar Kunikov received a critical breach on the port side and started sinking."[5] The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that Russian rescue operations were not successful and that they believe most of the crew did not survive.[6][20]

Ukraine later released grainy and edited video of the attack, showing the ship being attacked by USVs and receiving damage.[21][19] Analyzing the video, reporters at the BBC were able to verify the ship on the video was a Ropucha-class landing ship;[22] Reuters was able to identify the ship in the video as the Tsezar Kunikov but could not verify the date or location of the video.[5] According to the Associated Press, the private intelligence firm Ambrey concluded that the video showed the ship being attacked by three USVs, and that the ship likely sank after listing to its side.[7] There has been no additional confirmation of Ukrainian claims relating to the attack.[23][21] Ukraine said that the Tsezar Kunikov was the 25th Russian ship it had disabled.[19] Kyrylo Budanov later explained that, initially, Tsezar Kunikov was not the intended target of the 14 February strike, however due to changing conditions after the mission's commencement which prevented the original target from being struck, it was decided to change targets and attack Tsezar Kunikov instead.[24]

When asked for comment on the Tsezar Kunikov, both Russian military as well as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment.[25][7][19] However, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had recently destroyed six unmanned surface vehicles (USV) in the Black Sea.[26] A former sailor on the Tsezar Kunikov interviewed by BBC said that the entire crew of 89 had managed to evacuate the sinking ship.[6]

On March 6, the Russian-affiliated Telegram channel Fighterbomber released combat video footage from the personnel aboard the ship defending against the attack using heavy machine guns, small arms and searchlights, claiming that the ship was attacked by 10 USVs, four of which were destroyed during the 20 minute firefight, however the crew were forced to abandon the ship on lifeboats as the remainder of the USV swarm sank the ship. One USV hit the stern and immobilised the ship, likely damaging the propulsion system, and then remaining USVs took turns striking the midship portion of the hull on the port side in an attempt to cause listing; one USV also entered the hole created by earlier USV strikes, detonating inside the ship.

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