Ukrainian military intelligence has claimed responsibility for an attack on a Russian naval missile ship in the Kaliningrad enclave, headquarters of the Russian Baltic Sea fleet. It would be the first attack in an area so far from the front, between Poland and Lithuania, at a crucial point for Russian interests.
The attack, which Bloomberg reported this Tuesday, but whose authenticity could not be independently verified, would be the first by Ukrainian forces in this Russian territory and would demonstrate that Kyiv has increased its capacity to hit Russia not only in the border regions.
The official, who spoke to the agency on condition of anonymity, said the attack was carried out by Ukrainian agents.
Earlier, Ukrainian military intelligence, the GUR, posted a video on its website showing a ship on fire. And on the social network X said that a fire inside the Russian missile corvette Serpukhov had completely destroyed its means of communication and automatic operating equipment.
The Ukrainian media Kyiv Post and Kyiv Independent claimed that Ukrainian military intelligence was behind the fire, according to unnamed sources.
The Serpukhov is a Russian Buyan-M class corvette, a variant of the original Buyan, and entered service in 2015. It was named in honor of the city of the same name in Moscow Province.
The name missile corvette is taken from NATO nomenclature. In Russia, they are called “Project 21630 light artillery ships” and are vessels designed according to the characteristics of the Caspian Sea and the Volga River, and began to be built in 2004. They are in service both in the Caspian Flotilla and in the rest of the Russian navy.
Neither the Russian military nor Kremlin officials made any mention of the incident on Tuesday. The Serpukhov was docked at a naval base in Baltiysk, a settlement in Kaliningrad located just over 20 kilometers from the Polish border, the GUR said.
Although the attack against the Serpukhov corvette could have more psychological than practical impact in terms of the course of the fighting, it would indicate that Ukrainian drones are already capable of hitting targets within Russian territory quite far from the border.
Since early 2024, Ukraine has stepped up attacks inside Russia with long-range drones. As an example, this month Kyiv claimed to have hit a drone factory in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, about 1,200 kilometers from the border between the two Slavic countries.
This would be the first Ukrainian attack in the Baltic. But it is one of many carried out against the Russian navy. Since Russia sent its military against Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv forces have claimed to have hit about two dozen warships and other vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Moscow has rarely offered information on damage or casualties.
