A deadly missile submarine that the Kremlin said was “completely undamaged” by a Ukrainian drone attack hasn’t moved a meter from its moorings in four days and now has started to leak oil, according to new satellite imagery published on Friday of the Russian naval port Novorossiysk.
Operators from Ukraine’s national intelligence agency the Security Service of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Служба безпеки України or SBU) on Monday drove an explosives-laden Sub Sea Baby drone past harbor barriers in Novorossiysk to detonate near the stern of a Russian Varshavyanka 636.3-class (NATO: improved Kilo class) submarine.
SBU statements credited the agency’s secretive 13th Main Directorate of Military Counter-Intelligence for carrying out the attack, and claimed the boat had suffered “critical damage” and been put out of action for months at least.
The Kilo class carries launchers for four Kaliber cruise missiles, a long-range weapon used by Russia for years to bombard Ukrainian homes and businesses. The SBU strike was probably the first-ever successful wartime use of an underwater drone against a warship, independent observers said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry quickly issued a statement denying any damage was done, saying in part:
“The information disseminated by special services of Ukraine about the alleged ‘destruction’ of one of the Russian submarines in the bay of the Black Sea Fleet’s Novorossiysk naval base does not correspond to reality… the Ukrainian sabotage attempt failed to achieve its goals.”
Later on Monday, Capt. (1st Rank) Aleksei Rulev, Black Sea Fleet press service commander, in a statement to Russian media said:
“None of the ships or submarines of the Black Sea Fleet stationed in the bay of the Novorossiysk naval base, nor their crews, were damaged as a result of the sabotage and are on duty as normal.”
Major Russian television media in evening programming aired video footage showing showing a Black Sea Fleet submarine in the Novorossiysk area and reporting the Ukrainian strike was ineffective.
The Russian official narrative contradicted video released by the SBU which seemed to show a powerful explosion taking place in the vicinity of the sumbarine’s propeller and aft control surfaces, and the entire vessel itself rocked slightly by the blast. Satellite images made public on Tuesday showed the sub’s aft section lying low in the water.
An analysis published by the Institute for the Studay of War (ISW) on Wednesday said that in order to carry ou the attack the Ukrainian operators needed thread the drone through a near-maze of underwater obstacles, including minefields, marking a new level of drone remote control by Ukraine’s special services.
Post-attack satellite imagery from sources like Vantor and Planet Labs showed rubbled concrete and substantial damage to the quay at which the submarine is moored.
Scattered pro-Ukraine information platforms on Tuesday and Wednesday claimed the strike had killed 14 Russian sailors, but neither official Ukrainian sources nor Ukrainian mainstream media repeated that claim.
Russian commanders evacuated two other submarines from the dock area and sank blocking ships at the mouth of the harbor, imagery from satellite overpasses on Wednesday and Thursday showed.
The Ukrainian military information outlet Krymsky Veter followed by other naval warfare tracking platforms on Friday published new photographs of the submarine still at its moorings, and leaking something from the vessel’s port side – likely diesel fuel – into the harbor.
A probable complicating factor for Russian naval commanders now working to restore the boat to operational capacity is that Russia’s main naval base with repair facilities for major warships – the port Sevastopol in Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula – was evacuated by the Black Sea Fleet in October 2023.
Russia rented naval port facilities from Ukraine at Sevastopol starting in the 1990s, and in 2014 the Kremlin took them and the rest of Crimea over in Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine.
Devastating Ukrainian cruise missile strikes against Sevastopol in Sepember 2023, among other hits blowing up a meeting of top admirals of the Black Sea Fleet, sinking a heavy amphibious assault ship, and blasting an automobile-sized hole in the Kilo-class submarine Rostova-Na-Donu forced the Russian navy to abandon Sevastopol in October of that year.
Currently Russian naval construction teams are overhauling Ochamchire, a former fishing port in the Black Sea province Abkhazia to build a fleet base far from potential NATO or Ukrainian threats. Russia sponsored a “separatist” movment in Abkhazia in the 1990s and took control of the territory after a two year “civil war.” Currently Ochamshire serves as a secondary Russian base used by patrol boats and coastal cutters.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet operated six Kilo-class submarines with a collective salvo of 24 cruise missiles at the moment of Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Most naval analysts estimate only three are still available for operations against Ukraine. One still-working sub, the Novorossiysk, remains trapped in the Mediterranean once hostilities opened and Turkey per longstanding treaty terms closed the Straits to warships of both countries.