UK defence ministry confirms Russian Navy landing ship, submarine damaged in missile attack

A landing ship and a submarine of the Russian Navy were struck and damaged as a result of a missile attack on Sevastopol naval base on Wednesday, September 13, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) confirmed in a recent intelligence update.

The MOD said multiple missiles struck the Sevmorzavod shipyard at Sevastopol in the early hours (local time) of Wednesday, hitting the landing ship Minsk and the Project 636.3 submarine Rostov na Donu (pictured) while they were undergoing maintenance in dry docks.

The MOD added that, despite Russia’s Ministry of Defence downplaying the damage suffered by the vessels, open-source evidence indicates Minsk has almost certainly been “functionally destroyed” while Rostov na Donu has likely suffered “catastrophic damage.” Any effort to return the submarine to service is likely to take many years and “cost hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The ministry remarked that there is a realistic possibility that the complex task of removing the wreckage from the dry docks will place them out of use for many months, thus presenting Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with a significant challenge in sustaining fleet maintenance.

The loss of Rostov na Donu removes one of the Black Sea Fleet’s four cruise missile-capable submarines, which have played a major role in striking Ukraine and projecting Russian power across the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, the MOD concluded.