Russia’s Navy is having a bad day today. A large warship called the Olenegorsky Gornyak was seriously damaged by a Ukrainian sea drone carrying the equivalent of 1,000 pounds of TNT. Video from early this morning showed the ship listing badly and being towed back to port. That attack took place at a Russian naval base near Crimea. Naturally, Russia lied about what happened.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have thwarted the overnight attack on the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, but the fate of one of its warships was in doubt after videos shared on social media and a Ukrainian intelligence source suggested it had suffered damage.

In a statement released early Friday, the Defense Ministry said the naval base in southern Russia was attacked by two unmanned sea drones overnight. The drones were destroyed by ships guarding the outer boundary of the base, it said.

Heroic Russian ships destroyed pathetic Ukrainian drones. That’s the story they decided to go with. That story would be a lot more believable if there weren’t video from one of the sea drones showing it crash into the ship:

A Ukrainian naval drone carrying 450 kilograms of TNT struck a Russian Navy base at Novorossiisk in the Black Sea on August 3, causing extensive damage to a Russian warship, sources in the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) told @radiosvoboda. pic.twitter.com/kd78FdecKy

— Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (@RFERL) August 4, 2023

At first, Ukraine didn’t confirm or deny the attack. They often don’t take credit for attacks inside Russian territory. But the AP is now reporting that anonymous Ukrainian sources are saying they were responsible.

The Security Service of Ukraine and the country’s navy carried out the attack that damaged Olenegorsky Gornyak, a landing vessel of the Russian navy, according to an official with the security service. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give the information to the media, said the attack rendered the ship unable to perform combat missions.

Video showing the aftermath is pretty conclusive. The ship didn’t quite sink but it clearly took on a lot of water and was listing badly as it was towed back to port.

Another footage of Russian Navy’s Ropucha-class landing ship Olenegorski Gornjak being towed after Ukrainian kamikaze USV attack. pic.twitter.com/zlgiLqCcfA

— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 4, 2023

Here’s another angle.

Ladies and gentlemen, the attack on the russian Black Sea flees was a success. 🇺🇦💪 pic.twitter.com/BiGEQe4rhu

— ✙🍒 Constantine 🍒✙ (@Teoyaomiquu) August 4, 2023

I’m no expert but it looks pretty bad.

⚡️🇷🇺Russian amphibious assault ship of project 775 Olenegorsky Gornyak after meeting with 🇺🇦Ukrainian naval kamikaze drone pic.twitter.com/1QCBmfA577

— 🇺🇦Ukrainian Front (@front_ukrainian) August 4, 2023

Satellite images show they did eventually get this ship to a dock where it seems to be leaking pretty large amounts of oil into the sea.

Looks like something is leaking from the Russian Ropucha-class landing ship 'Olenegorsky Gornyak' in the port of Novorossiysk after it was damaged by Ukrainian naval drone. Image by @planet taken at 10.32 local time). pic.twitter.com/8I7lmoRFMH

— Mark Krutov (@kromark) August 4, 2023

The sea drone used in this attack may have been the same type used on the recent attack on the Kerch bridge. CNN dis an exclusive story about these drones last week.

That report mentions that the range of these drones is about 800km. That’s about the range of today’s attack, assuming the drone was launched from Ukrainian soil.

⛴️/5. The distance that was covered by a sea drone, if it was launched from the territory of Ukraine, from the Ukrainian coast to the Russian port in Novorossiysk is probably at least 700 km or possibly more. pic.twitter.com/TP63nIFaXp

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 4, 2023

As for why Ukraine wants to strike this particular port, the BBC says the reasons are obvious.

This is not the first time Ukraine has tried to hit the Novorossiysk port, and the reasons are obvious.

Around 1.8m barrels of oil are exported from there every day – around 2% of the global supply.

It is also an important naval base for Moscow.

Clashes in the sea have increased in recent weeks, after Russia abandoned a UN deal that enabled grain to be safely exported between Russia and Ukraine across the water.

Ukrainian ports have been pummelled by Russian drones and Kyiv seems to have been keen to respond.

Russia has been bombing one of Ukraine’s key grain exporting ports and Ukraine wants to bomb one of Russia’s key oil exporting ports in response. Today that succeeded pretty dramatically. This is the biggest embarrassment for the Black Sea Fleet since the sinking of the Moskva last year.

This appears to be the first, unconfirmed video of the Moskva, Russia’s now-sunken Black Sea flagship, after it was hit by Ukrainian missiles.

It’s three seconds long and the last two are someone saying: “You fucking idiot! What the fuck are you doing?”

pic.twitter.com/K5xhKZ2TKi

— max seddon (@maxseddon) April 18, 2022