Ukraine Attacks Russian Landing Ship with Cruise Missile: Moscow Admits Damage, President Putin Knows

JAKARTA - Ukraine claims to have successfully attacked a Russian landing ship with a cruise missile, while President Vladimir Putin has been informed of this and Moscow admits there was damage.

The attack on the Novocherkassk landing ship anchored in Crimea that evening killed at least one person, seen as preventing Russia from seizing more Ukrainian territory along the Black Sea coast.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said an attack on the Novocherkassk, which can carry tanks, armored vehicles and troops for landing, would make it difficult for the ship to return to service.

"We can see how powerful the explosion was, what the explosion was like. After that, it was very difficult for a ship to survive, because this was not a rocket, this was an ammunition explosion," he told Radio Free Europe, as reported by Reuters, December 27.

Ihnat revealed that Ukraine used cruise missiles to carry out the attack, without providing further details. It is known that Kyiv obtained such missiles from Britain and France.

Meanwhile, footage uploaded to Russian news outlet Telegram, purportedly taken from the port, showed a powerful explosion and raging fire.

Unverified social media videos showed huge explosions and soaring flames lighting up the night sky. An unverified daylight photo, which a Ukrainian blogger claims shows the remains of the ship, depicts an elongated, charred mass of debris emerging from the water near the dock.

The Russian Defense Ministry, quoted by the Interfax news agency, said Ukraine had used air-launched missiles to attack the Crimean port of Feodosia and that the landing ship Novocherkassk was damaged.

Meanwhile Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has briefed President Vladimir Putin in detail about the attack, the Kremlin said.

Separately, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed governor of Crimea, said via Telegram that one person had died as a result of the attack while the RIA news agency said four people had been injured.

It is known that, although Ukraine's counteroffensive has made few gains on the battlefield and the Russian military has regained the initiative in some places, Ukraine has been able to launch a series of attacks on Crimea, the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and cause serious damage.

Previous strikes targeted ships in dry dock, warships anchored in the main port of Sevastopol, airfields, the Black Sea Fleet's main headquarters building and a bridge linking southern Russia to Crimea.