Ukraine has confirmed it attacked a ferry that gave Russian troops vital logistical support as satellite imagery showed the aftermath of the strike.
Ukraine’s Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said Kyiv was behind Thursday’s attack on the Conro Trader roll-on/roll-off, 358-feet cargo ship in Kavkaz port by the Kerch Strait in Russia’s Krasnodar territory.
Krasnodar authorities had earlier accused Kyiv of carrying out “another terrorist attack,” and video shared on social media showed flames and smoke billowing into the sky from the site.
Pletenchuk said that the ferry provided fuel, lubricants and weapons for Russian forces and that the strike “should reduce the potential of our enemy’s capabilities in those locations where they are actively engaged in hostilities.”
The U.S-funded Radio Liberty’s Crimea.Realities project reported that there were at least 30 fuel tanks on the ferry.
“The ferry sank,” Pletenchuk said according to Radio Svoboda, the Ukrainian arm of Radio Liberty on Friday, according to a translation.
He did not specify how the operation was carried out although a defense source in Kyiv reportedly said that Kyiv had used a Neptune cruise missile.
Satellite imagery by Planet Labs showed heavy damage to the rail and vehicle embarkation point of the terminal by the Kerch Strait which links the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
Pletenchuk said that two other railway ferries in the port are not working because they were undergoing repairs. “Local residents in the occupied Ukrainian Crimea immediately reacted by converging on gas stations,” he said.
Although its navy is dwarfed by Russia’s, Kyiv has declawed much of Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet with repeated drone and missile strikes near the occupied Crimean peninsula that Kyiv has vowed to recapture.
Ukraine has also continued with its strikes on Russian military infrastructure and oil processing sites. An oil terminal in the city of Proletarsk, Rostov region, holding as much as $200 million worth of fuel, has been on fire for nearly a week following a drone strike on August 20.
Radio Svoboda released satellite images showing the Rosrezerva oil depot fire, with open source intelligence outlets reporting that 14 fuel tanks had been completely destroyed, four were partially destroyed, and 16 remained intact.
Amid criticism from locals that the authorities were not doing enough to tackle the fire and the relative silence from federal authorities, Russian social media channels reported on Saturday that the blaze was spreading to residential buildings.
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