Ukraine’s military released a blurry image of a dark plume of smoke rising from a burning ship in the southern Russian port of Kavkaz. The Ukrainian military has claimed to have dealt significant damage to Russia’s last railway ferry in Crimea used to transport military equipment to Vladimir Putin’s forces on the occupied peninsula.
Its general staff described the vessel as “the third and last railway ferry that Russia had in that area” as it published a blurry image of a dark plume of smoke rising from a burning ship.
The Slavianin, the 150-metre-long ferry, was struck in a Ukrainian drone strike on the southern Russian port of Kavkaz, just seven miles from the 12-mile Kerch Bridge, the only direct land link between Russia and Crimea.
One person was killed and more wounded in the attack, according to Veniamin Kondratyev, Krasnodar’s regional governor.
He said that a fire erupted but had been brought under control. The extent of the damage to the ferry was not immediately clear.
“The occupiers used this ferry to transport railway wagons, motor vehicles and containers for military purposes,” Ukraine’s general staff said on the Telegram messaging app.
The ferry crossing between Krasnodar Krai and occupied Crimea is considered a key logistical route used by Russia to reinforce its troops in southern Ukraine.
“Russian forces routinely use ferries in the area to relieve pressures on the Russian ground line of communication connecting Krasnodar Krai and occupied Crimea across the Kerch Strait Bridge,” the Institute for the Study of War, the Washington-based think tank, said.
The Kerch Bridge is frequently closed to traffic, including military hardware, because of the threat of Ukrainian attacks, as it was during the drone attack on Kavkaz.
It has been the target of multiple missile and sea drone attacks by Kyiv in an attempt to sever the strategic crossing, a symbol of Vladimir Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
As a result, ferries are used to maintain the flow of goods between the Russian mainland and the peninsula.
In May, a joint operation between Ukraine’s SBU security service and the wider armed forces targeted two ferries travelling to Kavkaz in a missile attack.
On the same night, the SBU and Ukrainian navy carried out another missile attack on an oil depot at the port.
The terminal, one of the largest in the country, is used by Russia to export both oil and grain across the Black Sea.
Disrupting Russia’s lines of communication out of Crimea has long been a key goal for Ukrainian forces. Weakening Putin’s grip on the peninsula is also seen by Kyiv as a way of projecting strength at any final negotiations to bring the war to a close.
Colonel general Oleksandr Syrskyi maintained that he has a strategy to free Crimea from Russian rule after more than a decade in an interview with the Guardian.
“It’s realistic,” Ukraine’s commander-in-chief said. “Of course, it’s a big military secret. We will do everything we can to reach the internationally recognised borders of 1991.
“We have to win… to liberate our citizens who are in the occupied territories, who are suffering.”
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