Kyiv [Ukraine], May 2: On May 1, the Ukrainian Navy announced that it had no longer detected any Russian warships in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. "In the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, enemy ships have disappeared," Newsweek magazine quoted the announcement as saying.
Since the conflict broke out in February 2022, the Ukrainian military has repeatedly used unmanned devices and cruise missiles to attack the Russian Black Sea Fleet , headquartered in Sevastopol in the Crimean peninsula. This is said to have caused Russia to remove ships from the area to ensure safety.
Satellite images from October 2023 showed that the fleet moved towards the port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar Krai region in southern Russia, while some headed towards the port of Feodosia at the eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula.
Images last month shared by open source researchers showed that the Russian Black Sea Fleet had almost abandoned its main military port in Crimea, according to Newsweek .
Russia has not commented on the above information.
The announcement by the Ukrainian Navy came shortly after Boris Rogov, a pro-Russian politician in the region controlled by Moscow in the southern Ukrainian province of Zaporizhzhia, said Kyiv had launched an ATACMS ballistic missile from Kherson to Crimea in on April 29.
Mr. Sergey Aksyonov, Crimea's Russian-appointed leader, said unexploded small shells fell in the Simferopol area in Crimea after ATACMS missiles were shot down.
Ukraine has not commented on this information. ATACMS is a ballistic missile with a range of up to 300 km, recently supplied to Ukraine by the US. Last year, Washington transferred a shorter-range version of ATACMS to Kyiv.
In March, Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk announced that Kyiv's goal was to make the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov clear of Russian military ships.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper