VLADIMIR Putin’s newest warship has been blown up in a Ukrainian missile strike, video evidence appears to reveal.
The ultra-modern vessel, Askold, was blasted as huge explosions rocked a shipyard in annexed Crimea in yet another humiliation for the tyrant.
Footage appears to show the Askold being destroyed in a missile strikeEast2West
East2WestIt’s understood the blast has left the ship out of commission[/caption]
Dramatic footage appears to show three separate missile strikes – while another new image highlights huge damage to the newly-built naval warship.
The blasts are believed to have been by SCALP-EGs – the French version of the Anglo-French Storm Shadow which has repeatedly caused damage to key Russian targets in recent months.
Russia earlier admitted damage to a ship in the Kerch attack but did not specify the name.
Now Ukrainian sources see the latest images of proof that they scored a hit and have put the Askold – a small missile ship capable of carrying eight Kalibr missiles – out of commission.
The ship will be unable to go “on combat duty in the near future,” said Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman of Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command.
She added: “The blow was powerful.”
Initial reports of the damage came at the weekend but without hard proof.
Videos showed missile strikes but from a distance.
“I hope another ship has followed the Moskva,” Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of Ukraine’s Air Force, said at the time in a Telegram post, referring to the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship sunk by Ukrainian missiles on April 14, 2022.
Ukrainian sources later indicated the destroyed vessel was the Kalibr-missile carrying 197ft-long Askold, which was poised to enter service, or one of two others of the same Karakurt class.
Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said: “The ship has not even taken part in sailing or combat yet – it was undergoing some final testing work, so that it could then go to sea and fight against our state.”
The Askold is a Project 22800 Karakurt warship, one of three being built at the Russian-occupied shipyard in Kerch.
The other two are the Amur and Cyclone, and like the Askold were due in service this year.
The loss of the Askold follows a strike that destroyed the Sevastopol headquarters of Putin’s Black Sea Fleet in a missile strike on 22 September.
Nine days earlier Ukrainian missiles hit the £250 million Kilo-class attack submarine Rostov-on-Don and large landing ship Minsk in a repair shipyard in naval port Sevastopol.
Multiple warships have been damaged, the most embarrassing for Putin being the Moskva frigate – Black Sea Fleet flagship – which was sunk in a strike by Ukrainian Neptune missiles.
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