A Ukrainian sabotage operation has damaged a Russian minesweeping vessel in Russia’s Kaliningrad region and put it out of action, Ukraine’s military spy agency said on Monday.
The spy agency, known by the acronym GUR, said it was the second attack it has carried out on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea this year.
The agency did not say how it had conducted the latest operation, but said water had entered engine of the Alexander Obukhov Alexandrit-class minesweeper through “a mysterious hole” in a gas pipe.
There was no immediate comment from Russia, which began its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Its Kaliningrad exclave lies more than 300 km northwest of Ukraine.
The GUR statement said the vessel was undergoing major repairs after the incident.
The spy agency published what it said was a video clip shot on Oct. 3 showing the vessel’s engine needing repairs after water got in. The second part of the clip was purportedly shot on Sept. 29 and showed the tiny hole.
The GUR and a pro-Kyiv Russian military group claimed responsibility earlier this year for an arson attack on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea in April.
Ukraine’s armed forces commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi said he ordered defences to be strengthened in the eastern Donetsk region. This comes a day after Kyiv announced they withdrew from Vuhledar.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the loss of Vuhledar, saying moving troops out and preserving lives was the critical issue.
The Russia-appointed governor of Donetsk region said both sides recognise the strategic value of the town.
Russian troops are steadily inching forward in different sectors in eastern Ukraine despite Kyiv’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region intended to slow the advances.
He gave no details on the location but the brigade operates in the Pokrovsk front, an area of intensified Russian assaults.
Team Bharatshakti (With inputs from Reuters)
