Ukraine has claimed it used sea drones to sink a Russian navy ship in the Black Sea on Wednesday.
Its military intelligence agency, known as GUR, has posted footage which it claimed shows drones targeting the armed ship Ivanovets.
According to GUR, the ship costing between $60 and $70 million (£47 and £55 million), was on patrol on Lake Donuzlav in western Crimea, when a GUR special unit struck it - but the attack has not been independently verified.
🔥Last night, the Ukrainian Intelligence GUR destroyed the Russian missile boat 'Ivanovets' in Crimea, valued at $60-70 million. The ship listed astern and sank.
— Maria Drutska 🇺🇦 (@maria_drutska) February 1, 2024
In order to find it, the russians can look at the same place where cruiser Moskva is. pic.twitter.com/9ss1UuYAWR
Private security firm Ambrey said Ukraine used up to six sea drones, each of which usually carry 300 kilograms of explosives, in the attack. The GUR footage showed the ship was sinking.
Russian officials made no immediate comment.
Ukrainian attacks on Russian aircraft and ships in the Black Sea have helped push Moscow's naval forces back, allowing Kyiv to increase crucial exports of grain and other goods through its southern ports.
Meanwhile, Russia's Investigative Committee, the main state criminal investigation agency, said it deduced the Russian Il-76 military transport plane that crashed near the border with Ukraine on January 24 was downed using the US-made Patriot air defense system, which Western allies have supplied to Kyiv.
Russian officials claimed there were 74 people on board, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew members and three Russian servicemen. All were reported killed.
The two missiles were fired by the Ukrainian military from near the village of Lyptsi in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, it said.
The committee said in a statement that 116 fragments of two MIM-104A missiles that were fired from the Patriot system were found near the crash site in the Belgorod region. It produced no physical evidence for its claims.
Meanwhile, along the front line stretching across eastern and southern Ukraine, fighting has continued to claim civilian lives.
In the eastern Donetsk region, the Russian army shelled 11 towns and villages, killing one person in the village of Tsukuryne on Thursday. In Toretsk, two people were wounded during a rocket attack, the Ukrainian presidential office said.
In the south, six civilians were wounded in the Kherson region, including a husband and wife in Beryslav who were hit by a drone attack while riding a motorcycle through the city.
