The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation stated that a Ukrainian cruise missile hit a warship in Kerch.
Russian media claim that “a ship that was at the shipyard” was hit.
Mykola Oleshchuk, Commander of the Air Force of Ukraine, reported that the Ukrainian tactical aircraft conducted the strike.
“Well done, it’s like using the SCALPel!” the Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force wrote, hinting that the aircraft used a French cruise missile.
Oleshchuk claims that the strike hit the Zaliv Shipbuilding Yard.
The SCALP hit the Project 22800 Karakurt corvette, which was in the shipyard’s waters.
Oleshchuk suggests that the Askold small missile ship was possible to be destroyed, which is a carrier of Kalibr cruise missiles.
However, on November 2, the OSINT researcher MT Anderson published a satellite picture of Novorossiysk Bay with the Askold corvette marked.
Askold has been undergoing trials since October 2022 and has not yet been accepted into the Black Sea Fleet. It has been repeatedly photographed by Russian bloggers in the Sevastopol area. So it is possible that it may indeed be outside the plant.
It is known that the Zaliv shipyard is also completing the Project 22800 Amur corvette. According to open sources, this ship, which is the same type as the Askold, was launched in December 2022.
This is the second effective attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the shipbuilding facility of the occupied Crimea using SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles. Earlier, the Rostov-on-Don submarine and the Minsk landing ship were hit.