Ukrainian partisans on Monday claimed that many of the warships in Russia's Black Sea Fleet have departed from their home port in Crimea following recent attacks by Kyiv's military.
Atesh, a military movement of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, posted the claim on Telegram, where they described a "real panic" among Russian President Vladimir Putin's naval fleet.
Spokespersons for Atesh also commented about the fleeing warships to the Kyiv Post, and the newspaper called the operation with the vessels a "systematic exodus" from the Black Sea Fleet's home port of Sevastopol. Newsweek could not independently verify the reported movements of Russian ships from the area, and the Russian Ministry of Defense was contacted via email on Tuesday.
The Atesh report regarding the fleet comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's forces have increased attacks on Russian targets in Crimea, which has served as a strategic hub for Moscow since Putin launched his of Ukraine in February 2022.
Since the start of the war, Kyiv's cruise missile and drone attacks have damaged at least 17 Russian vessels that have either been part of or functioning in cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet. This includes a strike earlier this month on a newly constructed small warship, named the Askold, which was docked in the Crimean city of Kerch.
The Ukrainian Air Force also unleashed cruise missile attack in September that resulted in the destruction of a Black Sea Fleet headquarters building in Sevastopol.
Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman of the Ukrainian Naval Forces, told a Ukrainian television station in September that Russia had recently been observed relocating ships from the Black Sea to the Azov Sea. Open-source naval observers in October also recorded Russian warships moving out of Sevastopol using satellite images.
According to Atesh representatives who spoke to the Kyiv Post, Black Sea Fleet warships have continued moving out of the region to the point where most may now be gone. A port in Novorossiysk, a city in Russia's Kuban region, is now thought to the location of many of these vessels.
In its Telegram message, the Atesh movement said its agents had "managed to record the transfer of enemy ships" from Crimea to Novorossiysk.
"This is being done due to successful missile attacks by Ukrainian forces on the Russian fleet," the Atesh movement wrote on Telegram.
The group added: "There is a real panic in the enemy ranks. The enemy realizes that new attacks on their fleet are coming and is trying to save them. But they won't succeed!"
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Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more
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