Russia's Black Sea Fleet Has Lost Another Warship - Ukraine claimed to have scored another victory against the Russian Navy on Tuesday, striking at the Crimean town of Feodoesa and damaging the large landing ship Novocherkassk.

In a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the Ukraine Defense Ministry announced that the warship was "destroyed" and proclaimed, "Ukrainian pilots did an excellent job. Crimea is Ukraine. There is no place for the occupier's fleet here." @DefenceU also posted a photo that appeared to show the warship engulfed in flames.

"The fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller!," Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine's air force, said in a post to the social messaging app Telegram, and further thanked "the pilots of the Air Force and everyone involved for the skillful work!"

Russian authorities have confirmed that the large landing ship had been severely damaged. One person was killed, two wounded and six people evacuated from their homes, according to Sergey Aksyonov, the head of the regional authority of Russian-controlled Crimea, was quoted as saying by Russia's TASS news agency.

The attack is just the latest carried out by Kyiv's forces using cruise missiles against vessels of the Russian Navy's Black Sea fleet. It was also noteworthy that Ukraine took credit for the strike, as Kyiv had previously not taken responsibility for attacks carried out on Russian and Russian-controlled territories.

"Over the last months, Ukraine has managed to force the fleet out of the western part of the sea, allowing Ukraine to resume cargo shipping from its ports," Politico.eu reported on Tuesday. "The successes against the Black Sea Fleet is a morale boost as the Ukrainian military counteroffensive to try and retake territory in the east of the country made little progress since it was launched in the summer."

Though Kyiv claimed to have employed cruise missiles in the recent attacks, it is unclear what type of weapons had been used. However, both the UK and France have supplied the Ukrainian military with such ordnance.

Moscow also claimed that two Ukrainian Su-24 (NATO reporting name "Fencer") fighter bombers were shot down during the attack. Kyiv has denied the claims.

The Novocherkassk Landing Ship

Novocherkassk (BDK-46) is a Ropucha-class landing ship that was actually built for the Soviet Navy in Gdańsk, Poland at the end of the Cold War. It has a displacement of 4,080 tonnes and is 112.5 meters (369 feet) in length. It is capable of carrying up to 500 tons of cargo and 240 troops, or ten main battle tanks (MBTs) and as many as 340 embarked soldiers, while it is armed with two AK-725 57 mm artillery mounts and two 122 mm multiple rocket launch systems.

The warship was damaged by Ukrainian shelling in March 2022 while docked in the port of Berdiansk. Though there was no confirmation that the vessel had been repaired, Russian State media claimed it was one of the dozen landing ships that could be employed in amphibious operations in Ukraine.

Black Sea Fleet: Hitting Russian Warships and Infrastructure

In another attack last month, Ukrainian drones had destroyed two small Russian Navy landing boats – which at the time were reported to be loaded with armored vehicles. Previous strikes carried out by Kyiv have targeted Russian ships in dry docks, warships moored in the main port of Sevastopol, airfields, the main Black Sea Fleet HQ building, and the bridge that connects southern Russia to Crimea.

Ukraine began targeting the landing boats after the Kremlin hinted it would try to seize more Ukrainian territory along the Black Sea coast, and it was just earlier in December that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin said that Odesa – the headquarters of the Ukrainian Navy – was a "Russian city."

"The whole southeast of Ukraine has always been pro-Russian, because these are historically Russian territories. Turkey knows this well, the entire Black Sea coast went to Russia as a result of the Russo-Turkish wars. What does Ukraine have to do with this? It has nothing to do with it. Neither Crimea, nor the entire Black Sea coast in general," Putin said in response to a TASS question. "Odessa is a Russian city. We know this. Everyone knows this. But no, they drummed up all sorts of historical nonsense."

It would seem Kyiv believes otherwise and is determined to make that point clear to Putin and the world. Since the start of the war, Ukraine has sunk the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva in April 2022, destroyed a Kilo-class submarine in Sevastopol in September 2023, and carried out a strike on a brand new missile boat at a shipyard in Kerch in November. In total, Ukraine has claimed to have successfully targeted 23 Russian vessels.

Author Experience and Expertise

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.