Ukraine’s defense intelligence, armed forces sink Russia’s large landing ship Caesar Kunikov. Russian missile strikes on Selydove kill a nine-year-old child, his mother and a pregnant woman. NATO Secretary General urges member states to send Ukraine ammunition from own stocks, ramp up production.
Ukraine’s defense intelligence, armed forces sink Russia’s large landing ship Caesar Kunikov
On the morning of February 14, explosions were audible in Yalta, Miskhor, Alupka, and Simeiz in occupied Crimea. Reports on Russian social media said that a large landing ship was struck near Miskhor and that another warship and Mi-9 and Ka-27 helicopters were headed there for a search-and-rescue operation. Russia’ Defense Ministry said it had intercepted six drones over the sea.
Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda, citing sources in Ukraine’s defense intelligence, said that Ukrainian drones struck the Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov in the Black Sea and that the defense intelligence was behind the operation. Later, the Main Intelligence Department of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry released a statement, saying that Ukrainian Magura V5 sea drones sunk the Russian warship. It also released a video of the strike.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine later said the operation was jointly conducted by the defense intelligence and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The warship was hit in Ukraine’s territorial waters off the coast of Crimea near Alupka.
Most crewmembers of the warship died, Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Department of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said.
“Exact numbers are not yet available, but according to the information we have, most of the crew died,” Yusov told The New Voice of Ukraine.
The Caesar Kunikov is a Project 775 large landing ship. It was deployed to Kosovo as part of KFOR in 1999 and was active in the conflicts in Syria and Georgia.
The warship has already been targeted since the invasion. It was damaged along with the Novocherkassk in a Ukrainian strike on the occupied port of Berdyansk in March 2022, when a third landing ship, the Saratov, was sunk.
The operation success owes to a well-coordinated “swarm tactics”, Defense Express, a Ukrainian military analysis site. Russian “sailors armed with rifles” was Russia’s sole response, it added.
Drones attacked the warship from different sides, striking its key points.
According to the video released by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, the first drone approached the Caesar Kunikov from the side of the coast, aiming at the vessel’s bow. There’s a weak spot there that landing ships have.
After the destruction of Caezar Kunikov in the Black Sea, only five of the 13 Russian Black Sea Fle
Russian missile strikes on Selydove kill nine-year-old child, his mother and pregnant woman
Russian missile strikes on Selydove, in Donetsk region, overnight on Wednesday have left three dead. A nine-year-old child, his 36-year-old mother and a 38-year-old pregnant woman who was inside a hospital were killed in the attacks, the Office of the Prosecutor General said.
The strikes damaged nine apartment buildings and a hospital. Twelve people were injured, including three children ages seven, 12, and 16. A 52-year-old man was injured outside a multi-story building.
People who were taken to hospital had blast injuries, fractures, contusions and blast wounds.
NATO Secretary General urges member states to send Ukraine ammunition from own stocks, ramp up production
NATO member states should “dig into their own stocks” and ramp up production to help tackle Ukraine’s ammunition shortage, NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference ahead of the NATO ministerial meetings in Brussels on Wednesday.
“Then on ammunitions. We need to do two things at the same time, we need to be able to deliver ammunition in the short term, meaning that we need to continue to dig into our own stocks, and we need to see if it is possible to buy ammunition from outside NATO countries. Allies have done that,” Stoltenberg said, answering a question about what NATO should do to help supply Ukraine with ammunition.
“We need to also be able to ramp up production from existing factories. More shifts have been a way to actually increase production from existing production capacity,” he said.
In the long term, NATO member states need to increase their production capacities, he added.
“Therefore I welcome decisions not only by Germany, but also from other Allies to invest more to ramp up production. And that’s the way we will ensure that we’re able to both continue to support Ukraine with a steady flow of ammunition, but also to replenish our own stocks,” Stoltenberg said.
In an interview with the German daily Welt am Sonntag last week, Stoltenberg said: “NATO does not seek war with Russia, but we need to brace ourselves for potentially decades of confrontation,” adding that “if Putin wins in Ukraine, there is no guarantee that Russian aggression will not spread further.”
Debunking blatant lies from Tucker Carlson interview. Ukraine in Flames #572
In Putin’s first interview with a Western reporter since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began two years ago, the Kremlin handpicked Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host-turned-online commentator. In this interview, Putin uttered sentences about the past. On Putin’s logic, leaders anywhere can make endless claims to territory based on various interpretations of the past. Watch Ukraine in flames #572 to find out about the two-hour interview full of lies, historic manipulations and just plain nonsense and we will try to provide context to debunk Putin’s insane claims, that tried to justify Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Guests:
- Ihor Stambol, Сandidate of Historical Sciences
- Ruslana Polovynkina, Associate Professor of the Department of Entrepreneurship, Organizational Management and Logistics, Zaporizhzhia National University