The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that a Ukrainian reconnaissance ship, Simferopol, was sunk in the Danube estuary by a Russian unmanned surface vessel (USV).
Ukrainian Navy’s reconnaissance ship Simferopol, which was reportedly the largest ship commissioned by the country in over a decade, has been hit and sunk in a naval drone strike, the Russian Defence Ministry announced on Thursday.
According to the ministry’s statement, a high-speed unmanned boat was used to strike the Simferopol, a medium reconnaissance vessel of the Ukrainian Navy. As a result of the attack, the Ukrainian ship went down.
Military analysts noted that this incident marked the first major success in the use of Russian naval kamikaze drones against a large Ukrainian ship since the beginning of the special military operation.
The Simferopol, with a displacement of 1,220 tons, was converted in 2019 from a former trawler. Its reconnaissance suite was built around the Melkhior electronic intelligence station.
But Among the likely additional systems on board were wideband direction-finding antennas supplied by Rohde & Schwarz, which Ukraine imported in May 2019. Until now, the ship had been officially listed as still undergoing factory trials.
