KRAMATORSK — The network of saboteurs of the Ukrainian military intelligence in Northern Russia – which operates very far from national borders – has struck again and this time damaged the Russian missile ship “Serpukhov” anchored in a port of Kaliningrad, in small territorial exclave controlled by Moscow and overlooking the Baltic Sea.
On Monday evening, the Telegram channel of the military services of Ukraine (also known by the acronym Gur) published a video showing the start of a fire inside the engine room of the Russian ship, shot the previous day, and also a diagram of the construction of the ship – used to identify the most suitable point to start the fire on board. At direct request of Republic on the operation on Russian territory, intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov replies that there is no official comment. «We cannot confirm or deny, we can only confirm that there was a fire on the ship. It is likely that the ship would soon be moved to the Black Sea, given the recent losses of the Russian fleet.” It is the usual Gur line: to give news of the sabotage so that everyone knows who is responsible and to maximize the psychological effect, but without providing an official claim.
According to informal military intelligence sources, the fire completely destroyed the communication and automation system of the ship, which is part of the Russian units that can launch cruise missiles on Ukrainian cities while sailing in the Black Sea. Serpukhov carries eight missiles but now, according to Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk, it will be forced to stand still for a long period because repairs are made more difficult by international sanctions.
The longer Ukraine remains defenseless against Russian missiles and bombing, the more it tries to reduce the problem by going to the source. This means above all two things. Attack the ships that launch the missiles and hit the military airfields that host the bombers. Five days ago Ukrainian sources declared that twenty drones launched against four Russian air bases hundreds of kilometers from the border would have destroyed “six planes”, but no subsequent confirmation was possible, for example from satellite photos from independent sources. In July 2023, according to Russian investigators, the Ukrainian services went so far as to kill the former commander of a Russian submarine while he was jogging near the naval base in Krasnodar, Russia, because he had participated in bombings resulting in civilian casualties.
[[(gele.Finegil.StandardArticle2014v1) La crisi tra Ucraina e Russia e i conflitti collaterali]]
The Gur and in general all the military forces of Ukraine they targeted Russian ships sailing in the Black Sea and at anchor in Crimean ports and in recent months they have undertaken a campaign of rare effectiveness to force them to stay away from the coast. The Ukrainians have sunk three Russian ships since the beginning of the year. It is a success that stands out, because otherwise the military scenario for Kiev is not good at all. Russian troops are exploiting the U.S. aid blockade that began in early December – which is leaving Ukrainian soldiers without artillery shells and missile defenses – to bomb cities and advance into Donbass, though so far only by a few kilometres. President Zelensky in one of his evening speeches explicitly said that “if military aid does not arrive, we will lose the war”.
The campaign against Russian ships in the Black Sea – largely entrusted to military intelligence – was mostly carried out with missiles and naval drones. But this fire in the Baltic is sabotage on board and is in a separate category of operations. An infiltrator boarded the Serpukhov, started the fire, shot the video and sent it to Ukrainian military intelligence from hundreds of kilometers away. In the first two years after the invasion, Gur saboteurs they managed to enter two air force bases in the Pskov region – deep in Russian territory – and a third a short distance from the capital Moscow and film the destruction of Russian helicopters and warplanes.
